


The Graveyard Shift

by HasFar2Go



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: AU, F/M, Gen, Ghosts, Halloween, Paranormal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-27
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-02-22 20:09:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 60,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2520239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HasFar2Go/pseuds/HasFar2Go
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Meet Elizabeth Keen, involuntary Paranormal Criminal Profiler. (No, she didn't know that was an actual 'thing', either.) A Halloween AU Blacklist fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Still don't own any of this. This fic is just a little multi chapter Halloween treat, with plenty of material inspired by some great spooky films.

The 8tracks mix can be found [here](http://8tracks.com/thursdayschild/the-graveyard-shift).

* * *

 

" **A** nd this man? He checks out?" Harold Cooper's eyes darted from the screen to the agent standing next to him bathed in light from the TV screen. The younger man's gaze was focused on that screen, and his own hand in the film footage.

Donald Ressler looked at his boss after half a second of distraction, eyes still on the screen, and the clip filmed earlier in the day, in an interview room. "Him? Absolutely. He's been working for the FBI for a few years now, never any issues. Near-perfect accuracy with his work. Nothing's ever followed him home before...until now. He called to report the activity at 2 am this morning.

"He's shook up. Says the spirit won't leave him alone - started knocking things around in his house. They called me in when this guy was in the middle of a sentence and started repeating three codenames for operations we had suspected Red was involved in. Like a loop for five minutes straight, no stopping. These are operations that have never seen the light of day and have never been spoken of in public before."

Cooper noticed the movement then, just at the corner of the screen; even as he continued to talk to the Medium in the clip, Ressler's hand had begun to move the pen on the legal notepad. The movement was slow, barely noticeable really, but when the pen drew a long line underneath a word and flew out of the agent's hand, it got the attention of both men, and they clamored to push up and out of their chairs, staring at the pad.

Harold Cooper looked down at that notepad, now on his desk, and the words on the page.

"Alright. Let's find her, and see what he wants to say."

The page in his grip had six words in large, capital letters, crudely sprawled.

_I SPEAK_ _ ONLY _ _WITH ELIZABETH KEEN._

* * *

 

 **I** t was Hudson's frantic barking that woke her up, and not her alarm; it was easy to see in those few seconds alone that it wasn't going to be a good day.

She hushed her dog, a useless act, while she rolled over to check the time on the alarm clock, fully aware from the sunlight in her room it had happened again.

The alarm clock was unplugged.

"Babe, what time is it?" Liz made a frantic grab for her husband's wrist to check for herself on his watch. "Oh shit!"

Beside her, Tom mumbled as he sat up, immediately alert but bleary eyed. "What time do you have to-"

Liz was already up and out of the bed, dashing into the bathroom as she frantically tried to gain control of the morning. "It's my first day! The clock-"

Tom moved around the bedroom behind her, just in her peripheral vision in the mirror - he was late for the school day as well, and Liz knew there'd be an awkward fight over the car keys in the next few minutes. "Again? I made sure it was plugged in again last night. I used the wall outlet instead of the strip thinking that was - Hudson, buddy, give it a rest. There's nothing in the corner."

"Maybe you should call the electrician?" she suggested as she buttoned her blouse.

"Yeah. I'll have him look the wiring," her husband replied, appearing in the bathroom doorway, cleaning his glasses and enviously, entirely dressed. "The lighting keeps flickering no matter how many times I check the bulbs. Maybe the subway runs under the house? That might cause vibrations."

Liz brushed her teeth and jumped into her pants, trying to focus on what she had to do to get ready. She thought she'd left this kind of stuff behind in New York. When he moved in ahead of her, settling in for the start of the school year while she finished her time at her job before her transfer, Tom had assured her this house would be their home, a good home, and there weren't any 'creepy vibes' like they had at their city apartment.

She wasn't about to tell her husband that Hudson spent a whole lot of time barking at nothing when it was just the two of them in New York. Or that unplugged alarm clocks were nothing compared to furniture being moved, and items missing and reappearing elsewhere.

This was their creepy-free, new chapter of their life. Complete with a baby, if the meeting with the adoption agency later today went well.

They were out the door in record time, and in the end, Liz cajoled Tom into letting her have the car since it was her first day.

About halfway through her drive, she realized she wasn't recognizing the streets - well, she recognized them, but they weren't on the trip to the building she was supposed to be reporting to for orientation. The GPS informed her she'd reached her destination on the right when she stopped at the parking lot for the J. Edgar Hoover Building.

The light was red, so she grabbed her phone off the seat next to her to check her calendar and immediately worried about how lost in her own thoughts she'd been in the last few days - she'd updated the calendar and programmed the GPS without remembering it.

"Get it together, Keen," she muttered as she pulled into the parking lot.

After one last look in the rearview mirror and a steadying breath, Liz put the morning behind her and stepped inside the building, feeling a small thrill as she stepped over the FBI's seal on the floor.

"Hi," she greeted the officer in the security booth, giving the woman the sunniest, friendliest smile she could muster. "My name is Elizabeth Keen. I have an appointment with…" she looked back down at the phone. "Mr. Raymond Reddington? Could you let-"

Liz never got to finish her request; the TV behind the officer flickered and dimmed for half a second, just as a SWAT team came sweeping into the lobby. Just like everyone else in the space, she looked around to see what had triggered the response.

Except for a blonde man just beyond the guards. He was staring directly at her, the smallest of smiles on his lips. Hairs on the back of her neck rose, and her stomach jolted unpleasantly.

She hadn't felt that in years, but she knew what it meant, and silently prayed it was a fluke; this was supposed to be a fresh new start for her. That was all done and behind her.

"Miss Keen?"

Liz dragged her eyes from the blonde man - she could see now that his suit was old, mid 80s, judging by the jacket - to the one addressing her. Strawberry blonde with the stern-cut features of a Ken doll, but his hand was on a very real gun at his waist.

"Agent Keen, my name is Donald Ressler. I'm going to ask you to come with us."

The dead blonde man in the corner laughed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We're government ghosts who nab ghosts."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Don't own anything related to the Blacklist, or any of the other movies/shows/books referenced in this, either.

**W** ho knew the basement of the J. Edgar Hoover Building had conveniently located interview rooms?

The walls were painted a celery green, and dust clung to them thick and fuzzy. Liz realized the dim lighting may have been intended to intimidate as well as conceal.

She shifted in the metal chair, waiting for the FBI agent across her at the scarred, alarmingly dented table to ask the next question. So far, her answers to the questions had been mostly negative, since all of the questions were associated with the man known as Raymond Reddington.

Not that they were saying his name out loud. The name was on the paper before her, and occasionally he'd point to it. She made that mistake once, and the action figure brought to life across from her jumped all over it, insisting that they would simply refer to him as 'Red' for the rest of the conversation.

"You mean interrogation," she had corrected him, feeling a small spike of frustration.

Ressler tried to excuse the situation as a routine, voluntary questioning, but she shook her head, more than on to the truth.

"You keep looking to the window out of the corner of your eye every time I answer a question, like you're looking for someone to validate my responses."

She wondered if was some sort of wireless, next gen lie detector or something.

He stared at her.

She shrugged. "Part of my job in the mobile unit was psych assessments. I'm observant."

She sat up a little straighter, feeling like she'd gained some footing with the comment. Liz used the most authoritative voice she had, the one that caused her former coworkers to call her 'Sir'.

"Agent Ressler, like I said before several times in a dozen ways: I don't know this man. His name appeared in my calendar today for my appointment. I'm supposed to be starting my desk job on the other side of town today. What is this all about?"

He pulled a photo out of the folder under his hand, and slid it across the table towards her. She pulled it closer to diminish the glare on the glossy print from the lone lightbulb above, and suddenly hoped she was still good at controlling that jarring shock that came from seeing a ghost.

It was the man from the lobby. The photo was old, some aged and faded formal portrait in a uniform - it looked a military academy graduation portrait. He looked like a teenager, a few years younger than she'd seen him.

"Do you have a connection to the man in this photo? Your file shows you were adopted-"

Liz felt her head snap up at that, stifling a snort. "You think this _kid_ is my biological father?"

The countering question kept her from answering the first part - she wasn't sure if seeing him earlier would mean her 'no' would count as a lie.

There was a smack at the other side of the one-way glass, and they both jumped.

She hadn't even said anything yet.

"Do you have a connection to this man, Mrs. Keen?" Ressler asked again.

Liz opened her mouth, and closed it again. There was no use lying if they were remotely monitoring her answers. Her mouth felt dry and her cheeks burned.

"I...You're all going to think I'm crazy."

The man smiled politely. "Maybe not."

Liz closed her eyes as she answered, wanting to avoid the _look_ she was about to receive and exhaled. "I saw him before. In the lobby."

"You mean you saw his Most Wanted poster."

Liz shook her head, wishing she could just go with what he said, but knowing there would probably be another smack at the glass. "No, I saw _him_ the lobby."

Agent Ressler's mouth formed a flat line, and it was like she could hear his thought process. First day of work in DC, and she was going to be labeled a wack-job. Fantastic.

The fingers of her right hand curled to brush against the mottled flesh of her palm.

It wasn't like she had ever said anything to anyone in New York. The last time she'd ever told anyone about what she could see was in middle school, and she'd learned her lesson very quickly about trusting people with that kind of thing; it only got you hurt, gave people a weapon against you.

The FBI agent stared at her for a moment, as if willing her to continue.

"I'm telling you the truth," she insisted. "The only reason I even knew his name was because it was in the meeting on my calendar...from an email that was sent to me for orientation."

"It wasn't in the email," Ressler argued, and pulled another page out of his folder. It was a print out of the email sent to her two weeks prior. Sure enough, the meeting was for another building, and no one was named.

She sat back in in the chair, feeling her shoulders slump, her heart thundering in her ribcage. "I don't know what to tell you."

"You can tell me this: did you develop the ability, or were you born with it?"

When she didn't answer, he continued. "Where you born with your gift, or did you develop it...near death experience, too much time playing with a Ouija board?

He kept going, leaning forward slightly. "Me, I nearly died. Got shot by a perp I was chasing down, rushed into surgery. My heart stopped at some point, and I was clinically dead for about a minute. Woke up like that kid in the Bruce Willis film."

She stared at him, trying to figure out what was really going on. A bubble of relieved laughter started in her chest and it escaped her lips. "Is this some kind of first day prank? This is some kind of Halloween thing, right?" She leaned forward, feeling like she could breathe for the first time since she'd been surrounded by the SWAT team. "I won't file a complaint with HR if we drop this now."

He opened his mouth to answer her, but there was a knuckle tap on the glass, and Ressler rose from his seat, a knee-jerk reaction. The door opened, and an older man with an air of authority entered the room. Ressler ducked his head, turning away from Liz to address the man quietly.

"Sir, I'm not sure-"

"-I'll take it from here, Agent Ressler."

The younger man cast one last glance in her direction before begrudgingly leaving the room, clearly an argument on the tip of his tongue. The newcomer walked over to the table and extended his hand, shaking hers while he sat.

"Agent Keen, I'm Assistant Director Cooper. I'm sorry for that welcoming committee earlier; when Red requested to speak to you, we weren't exactly expecting you to walk right into the building."

It felt like the carpet was ripped out from under her. It wasn't a prank, was it?

"To be perfectly honest, sir-"

He smiled warmly. "-It would be best if you were, Agent Keen. I happen to be _very_ good at knowing when someone is lying."

Suddenly she was a kid in front of her father. He used to say the same thing. She tried to swallow but found it difficult.

He knitted his fingers together before him on the table, and cleared his throat. "Now Agent Keen, I need to ask you a question, and I need you to be very honest with me: Do you believe in ghosts?"

Liz watched him watching her, feeling herself growing frustrated when she couldn't see where the conversation was going. She decided to simply go with the truth. "Yes."

"And is it fair to say you've seen some sort of first hand evidence to confirm this belief for yourself."

She licked her lips, then nodded. "Yes. Yes sir."

Ressler shifted in his seat, crossing his legs and arms and leaning back. "And when did it start for you? Seeing things that others couldn't? Hearing people no one else knew were there?"

She took a deep breath, weighing in her mind just how much she wanted to give up. "Since I could remember...before that even, I guess. But until today, I haven't had a, a flare up since college."

The Assistant Director's kind smile faltered for only a second - something she had said had struck a chord with him - but she saw it before the warm and inviting look was back and he posed the question, "What if I told you that there are others like you, a whole division of people who have abilities that set them apart from others?"

The corners of her mouth lifted, but her lips remained closed as her shoulders rose slightly. "I guess I'd say I have to see it to believe it, sir," she finally replied.

Cooper stood, buttoning his jacket and gesturing towards the door. "We better get going then."

* * *

 **T** he ride was short, but soon enough Liz was in an underground garage of an old, empty government building with Cooper, Ressler, and a few other agents. They rode down in an old service elevator, and the doors opened and let them out on a floor buzzing with activity.

Liz gaped.

A small number of the people walking around were dead. Definitely, entirely, absolutely dead. A man in suit dropped a folder and knelt to pick it up. The slightly translucent woman a few steps behind him simply kept going and passed through him. A petite woman walked by engrossed in the content on her tablet while a cup of coffee hovered at her shoulder; eyes never leaving the screen, she reached up and grabbed it to take a sip.

"Welcome to the Morgue," Ressler said as he stepped out of the lift, aware the woman beside him was a little taken aback.

"This is like a scene from X-Men or something," Liz muttered as she followed Cooper over to a work area filled with glass boards, photos and files taped to them. Interspersed here and there amongst the material were photos of the blond man, Red.

"We certainly are a diverse workplace," Cooper noted as he came to stop in front of the boards. "But we're uniquely qualified for the work we do."

Liz looked back at busier area of the floor. "And what's that? Slaying vampires? Hoovering up ghosts?" she cracked.

"If only it was that easy to get rid of the dead," Ressler muttered, darkly.

Cooper shook his head. "We're a clandestine division of the FBI tasked with detecting and apprehending atypical criminals who are operating beyond the reach of our public counterparts."

"We're government ghosts who nab ghosts," summarized the younger man.

She contained the desire to laugh or cry and continued to read the notes on the board, schooling her features into a blank look. This was ridiculous. This was all ridiculous but sadly real. She'd pinched herself earlier on the elevator though, and was very much awake. She had all ten fingers. She could taste the bitterness of the half cup of black coffee she'd poured into her travel mug flying out the door earlier

Liz ran her fingers over her scar and looked over the material on the board closest to her. "So this Re-Red guy, he's one of these ghosts? He's a criminal ghost?"

Ressler nodded. "One of the worst. Had a promising Naval career before his death, a spotless record. A few months after he died, classified intel from projects he'd been involved with appeared on the black market, and over time, it appears he's used a medium who goes by the name of Dembe as his intermediary while he's built himself a criminal empire. Most of the people who do business with him aren't even aware he's dead - they call him the Concierge of Crime."

He tapped on a photo over his shoulder. It was a grainy, black-and-white freeze frame from a security feed. There was a painting floating mid air. "So far, we've only got evidence he's a poltergeist - the typical disembodied voice, items moving seemingly on their own - usually items worth millions that go missing. I've spent five years tracking him down."

Liz debated on voicing her question, but Cooper gave her an encouraging look. "Ask the question, Agent Keen."

So she was adding 'mind readers' to her growing list of people and things that actually existed. "What happens when you catch them?"

"We have ways of containing them. If they don't agree to cough up information, we exorcise them," answered Ressler, who quickly added, "No priests involved. A lot of Latin though."

"Of course," Liz said faintly, feeling more than slightly overwhelmed. She stood a little taller before asking her next question with more confidence than she felt. "And where do I come into this?"

Cooper told her about the medium and the video from earlier that day as they left the floor and took a flight of stairs to another area. The hairs on the back of her neck rose again as they entered a booth full of monitors. Beyond the windows in the room, she could see down into a dimly lit, cavernous space and a large box structure towards the back of the area. Cooper introduced the stick figure of a man working on one of the computers in the booth as Aram Mojtabai.

"Aram built the Box down there," the Assistant Director explained. "We believe that if we can get Red into this building, we can contain him in the Box, detain him in it."

"It's all EM pumps and a lot of stuff you probably don't want to hear about," said Aram dismissively. "Besides, I'm still working on it. Actually sir, while you're here, can I ask you something?"

Liz stepped closer to the window to afford them privacy. She crossed her arms and peered down at the Box and its contents. It was hard at first, with the lighting in it, but she leaned a little closer to the glass and knew for certain that she wasn't seeing things.

She interrupted the conversation behind her. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you _not_ supposed to be able to see poltergeists?"

Ressler, who had been watching the news feed on a TV screen, turned to her with a curt nod, waiting to see where she was going with the query.

Liz jerked a thumb beyond her shoulder. "Then why can I see him in the Box?"

"Sorry, who?" Aram asked eyes comically wide and eyebrows high.

"It's that guy from the photo. Raymond Reddington is-"

She never got to finish the sentence. The power cut out. The glass of the windows in the booth shuttered as a sudden gust of wind rushed through the space below. Everyone grabbed onto the nearest piece of furniture when the whole room shook.

Just as quickly as it started, it was over, and the occupants of the room were all looking at one another for validation.

"Son of a bitch," yelped Ressler, pointing at the closest monitor showing the cage below. "He _is_ in the Box."

Cooper looked from the screen to the window, and Liz was now very certain he could see the figure as well from the way his lips thinned.

In the Box, Raymond Reddington smiled at the camera.

"It's showtime."


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She took the opportunity to pretend she wasn't being forced to work in some sort of mash up of Touched By An Angel and a police procedural show.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Own nothing. Trying to fly through these chapters but I'm not flying fast enough. Clearly this didn't finish in time for Halloween. Sorry!
> 
> After this chap, we'll start straying from canon.

**H** ow he made the old rusty chair look like a throne, Lizzie wasn't sure.

Even without the cameras and people watching from above, descending the stairs towards him in the shadowy space made her weary. The man sat waiting, watching her, separated from her only by the structure of the Box. The distance now dwindling, it didn't feel like much of a cage around him.

Liz took a seat in the chair facing him, trying hard to focus on him and not the frantically blinking lights behind him that she could see through him. He must have noticed, because he snapped his fingers and the overhead lights sparked and dimmed. Now, in the darker room, he looked more solid.

Apart from the faint, pearlescent glow of course.

"Agent Keen," he drawled, and she wondered if this was what it looked like to see a shark smile at you under the water. "What a pleasure."

Lizzie put on her most clinical, polite but removed smile possible. "Well, I'm here."

Red leaned back in his seat, seeming to take her in more closely than before. She ignored his attempts to throw her off kilter with a statement about the changes to her appearance, and tried to navigate the conversation to fertile territory.

"You already have a medium. You practically tortured another one to make your request. Why involve me? I'm nothin' special," she declared with a subtle shrug.

"Oh," Red said with a knowing laugh. "I think you're _very_ special."

There was something about the tone of his voice that had her looking him square in the eye. He _knew_. He'd somehow known about her ability despite all of those years trying to hide it.

And then he launched into info on a man named Zamani. He'd apparently been mentioned by the medium hours earlier, and information had been pulled to figure out what he might be talking about. Before Liz had come down to talk to him, they'd prepped her as best as they could.

"Ranko Zamani's been dead for six years," she countered, and he laughed.

"I've been dead a hell of a lot longer, and it hasn't stopped me...granted, I'm a _very_ special case, but I'm not alone. Death is boring. Might as well make it interesting."

* * *

 

 **B** efore she knew it, she was in the back of an SUV, whisking away a little girl to prevent her from being kidnapped.

And then there was the child's screaming, and smoke, and gunfire, and the weight of a charm bracelet on her wrist and on her conscience, and she was back at the edge of the Box, staring down the young man who watched her with the Cheshire smile, who knew all along what would happen, who might have even been behind the attack and kidnapping.

She gritted her teeth when she asked for his help, knowing it would put her in a horrible situation.

He wanted a trade - info on her scar for info on the ghost.

He jerked his chin in her direction, dropping his eyes to her curled hands for only a second before returning his gaze to her face.

"May I see it?" he asked. It was the sort of question a curious child would ask, and it sounded wrong coming from someone his age...worse still from a dead man. After a second, a smirk twitched across his lips before he continued languidly "I'd show you my mine, but one of those pesky rules about death even I can't shirk is the whole 'You're stuck wearing what you died in' thing."

Liz watched him, looking for some sign he'd step down from the request but he wasn't budging; he was patiently waiting, watching her. So she stepped closer, uncurling her fingers, refusing to drop eye contact or let him see how uncomfortable she felt exposing this to him.

He looked at her hand like it was something else. Like art. Like evidence. .

When he reached out to touch her, it took her by such surprise that she didn't move at first - just like she'd seen earlier up on the main floor with her coworkers, she imagined his fingertips would simply pass through. It was an odd move from a man who'd spent more than 20 years taking a dirt nap, like he'd forgotten the fact for a second.

The shock had them both jumping back, and Liz clutched her hand to her chest, staring wide eyed at him while the tingling

"Did you - did you know that would-"

"-No," he responded, voice thick as he shook his head and flexed his fingers, staring at her own. It felt like touching a doorknob after trekking across carpet in socks. Just a little zap, really, no sense of touch aside from that, but not expected at all.

He'd felt it. There was a sheen to his eyes, like they were watering.

She swallowed, trying to fix her suddenly dry throat, as she got back to her reason for visiting their ghost in residence.

"Tell me about the men who kidnapped the girl. Give me more details."

He may have had years to school his unaging features into heavy-lidded, bemused blase in most situations, but now he swallowed unnecessarily and shot her a look accusing betrayal before demanding to see what they had on Zamani already.

And he pushed her. Taunted her. Forced her to stop thinking like a cop, to think like a criminal, and then to think like a criminal who had already died and what he'd want revenge for, fearless of bullets or pain.

"Dying makes him dangerous," he reminded her.

He looked pleased when she realized that the kidnapping was retribution for his own death, and the death of his own child. Looked even happier as he insisted on being let out of the Box, that he be allowed to work with Dembe once again, and no, Lizzie still needed to stay on.

He friggin _waved_ at her when they moved him to a hotel to keep up appearances.

They found more of Zamani's group, and Liz took the opportunity to go home. To see her nice, normal husband and pretend she wasn't being forced to work in some sort of mash up of Touched By An Angel and a police procedural show.

That was when she saw the pink balloons,and the paperwork and the poster, and for a moment, it seemed like she'd have a world filled with a family to escape to at the end of her bizarre days.

That was when she found her husband pinned to the wall by something unseen, and she saw his blood on the wallpaper they'd just finished putting up.

Away from any EM pumps, like those used at work to make her new, ghostly coworkers visible to her - the reason, they'd figured, that she could see Red was that he was different, had some kind of connection to her and they were all frantically trying to figure out what it was - Zamani was demanding answers from her about how she knew he was still around, how the FBI was able to track down his mortal associates. And she could see him, easily tracking his movement around the room as she told him she didn't know much, just about the girl

"My friend Red is always going on about you. I expected more," he complained.

Her lack of answers had the dead man sending the carving knife from the steak on the dinner table across the room and into her husband's side. He offered her a choice: save her husband or save hundreds, and it wasn't even a choice as she rushed to her husband's side, the other man vanishing.

* * *

 

 **T** he ambulance arriving and the race to the hospital were a blur to her, but after only an hour or so in his room, she looked up to see two Toms, one still in a medically induced coma, the other staring down at himself.

She shouldn't have been able to see him.

Her frantic movement to check the heart monitor to ensure he was still alive caught his attention.

"I'm not dead?" he asked and she shook her head, trying to be calm for him, to assure him.

"No, babe, no you're not. It's okay. This is temporary." She remembered what the agents posted outside the door had told her earlier, when they were warning her about this potentially happening. For a brief second, a selfish one, she'd hoped he'd wake up with the ability too, just so she wasn't alone with her secret in their marriage.

They'd told her otherwise.

"You won't even remember this," she told him with a forced smile.

When she couldn't take it anymore, she excused herself, promising him she'd be back in the morning, and stepped out into the hallway. The house was still a mess, and she'd need to clean the blood up. Take down the wallpaper. Replace the carpet.

Caught up in her thoughts, Liz nearly walked into someone passing by in the hallway and immediately apologized to the woman. Something caught her eye and she looked back up at her.

Her heart sank when she could see the fire exit _through_ the woman, who was clearly distraught. Her head was at a funny angle, like her neck was broken…

It _was_ broken.

"Where am I?" the woman asked, teary-eyed. "Everyone here has been ignoring me, except for you. What's wrong with me?"

Words caught in her throat, Liz retreated, running blindly towards the elevators on the other end of the hallway, noticing in one room a young man in a soldier's uniform at the bedside of an old woman. A child was crying by the elevator, demanding that someone tell her what was going on. They were both dead. She knew somewhere deep in her gut.

Liz jammed frantically at the elevator button, closing the door as quickly as she could, and squeezed her eyes shut, willing herself to _stop_ , just stop seeing them. Wasn't that exactly what she'd done when she was younger? It worked then. It should have worked again.

"Why won't you talk to me?"

Liz jumped and opened her eyes, seeing the woman with the broken neck from earlier standing in front of her.

* * *

 

 **I** t took her twenty minutes, but she talked the woman down from hysteria in her car. Promised she'd pass a message to her son - she hadn't seen him in years, wanted him to know she loved him, she understood his distance, and that hidden in the sleeve of her Bing Crosby album was info on a bank account her husband didn't know about - and then woman was gone. Simply gone. She'd made a tiny comment about a light, and had vanished from her car, leaving Liz with a Starbucks receipt in her shaking hand, covered in info for a man she'd just promised to track down.

She would do it, of course. But at that current moment, her shock and confusion were curdling into anger.

She was _fine_ before Red touched her. She was normal.

Liz knew where they were putting Red up - why a ghost needed a hotel room was beyond her - and she drove to the place with the sort of pin-point, red-at-the-edges vision that meant getting there in one piece was a bit of a miracle.

She flashed her badge at the agents serving as guards at the door, lied and said Red had requested to see her, and stormed into the hotel room.

He was sitting at the dining room table, a newspaper in front of him, a pen poised over the crossword.

"What did you do to me?" she demanded as she came into the room.

"You look like you want to stab me with my pen," he observed, sounding a little delighted with the idea.

"Because I do. I really fucking do, Red," she seethed. "Who gave you the right to come into my life - my husband is in a coma, he's walking around the hospital like _you_ , like a ghost - and you have broken everything about me I've spent _years_ fixing. What do you think-"

"-Nothing was ever broken about you, Lizzie," the dead man cut her off with a frown. He went back to the crossword puzzle, avoiding her gaze. She could see he was trying his best to make it appear as if he was holding the pen, making it move like it was really his hand propelling it across the paper.

Control. He was trying to keep control.

No one had been able to put him back yet. Then again, she was the one that had helped him shimmy just a little to this side of the veil. He'd wanted that. He'd _known_ she could do that.

In that moment, she realized she could use his name to assert power, just like he had been doing to her.

Liz said his name three times.

He grew more transparent, but she could still clearly see him. The pen clattered to the table and he glared up at her, his lips pressed together with displeasure.

A guard outside the suite started knocking on the door shouting her name and demanding to know where Red went.

Liz slammed her hands on the table, leaning closer to him.

"You want to be seen? You want your dramatic little monologues to be heard?" she waited for half a second to continue, watching his lips to see if he'd say anything. "Then don't piss me off. Your plan seems to hinge on my continued cooperation, and if I were you, I'd be praying that my husband pulls through."

Cooper showed up impressively fast after that, demanding that she call him back, and the entire time she received her dressing down, Red sat in the chair, arms crossed, clearly enjoying it. Begrudgingly, she repeated his name three more times, and didn't even wait to be dismissed before trudging back out of the hotel.

She went home and cleaned the dining room until her hands were stinging and raw from the work and the chemicals, and then stumbled her way into the shower, letting it get to that perfect near-scalding temperature she needed it at.

Even as she tried to allow the water to hit her skin and drown out thoughts of the day she'd just experienced, it didn't work. Her mind wandered, processing what had taken place. The fear of being surrounded by the SWAT team, that giddy happiness she'd left with in the morning in anticipation of the meeting with the adoption agency, the feel of her husband's blood under fingers…

The look on Red's face when he told her nothing was broken.

Hudson's sudden barking startled her out of her thoughts, and she called out to her pet, hoping her voice would calm him down. He was still skittish from the-

Wait. No. She couldn't keep ignoring things like that. Not anymore.

Liz peeked around the edge of the shower curtain to see if anyone was in the bathroom with her. She was confronted by a room full of steam and a dog barking in the doorway.

She didn't push back the curtain until the towel was secure around her chest. The movement in the mirror's reflection caught her attention, and the vinyl bunched in her fingers as she stared at the words spelled out before her.

She recognized the handwriting from the note they'd showed her at the Morgue. Bold, capital letters. Hasty. Demanding.

_DON'T TRUST YOUR HUSBAND._

* * *

 

 **T** he next day was a whirlwind of activity, but they got the girl back. They exorcised Zamani, and Liz had the opportunity to sit down with Cooper behind closed doors and talk to him about what had happened in her home the night before.

"He thinks I can be easily manipulated. The man obviously doesn't know me very well," she concluded, exhaling heavily. "This is only the beginning, I'm sure. I had a priest come and bless my home this morning. I'll start burning sage. It's worked for me in the past. It should work again."

She steeled herself for the next part of the conversation. "As much as this work is the _last_ thing I want to do, it's obvious Red won't work with you unless I'm involved. But I think I could do something...I think it's why he wants me here. I think he wants me to profile these criminals we're handling, the ones he's telling us about."

Cooper considered her proposal for a second, and her confidence started to falter slightly, until he nodded affirmatively.

"Consider yourself the Morgue's first Paranormal Criminal Profiler, Agent Keen. Now let's go talk this over with the asset."

Red appeared in the Box as she was speaking his name the third time. She kept her voice and her gaze steady as she walked towards him.

"I'll agree to continue working with you if you stay out of my home, and stay out of my personal life. You will call me by my name, Agent Keen, or I will call you by _your_ name."

Red seemed to give the offer consideration for a moment, but Liz remained aloof and still, waiting.

"That sounds...predictable, but I can agree to your terms. Li-Pardon, Agent Keen," he said, making her name sound X-rated in the process, "I can't wait to start working on the next name on my list."

Liz gave him a disbelieving look. They'd anticipated bringing him cases to see if he had intel, not the other way around. "You have a list."

"Of course," he crowed. "I called it the Blacklist. That sounds exciting - and appropriately funereal."

He laughed, giving her a knowing look. "We're gonna make a _great_ team."


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I was a little surprised you didn't go all out and throw the ghost emoji in there, too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I don't own any of this. There are some lines from the Anslo Garick episode in this chapter that are slightly altered.

 

 **A** nd damn him, they did make a good team. He was frustratingly evasive, clearly working towards his own, unknown interests, but the safety of the country benefited from his current whimsy and the names he provided from the Blacklist continued to be ticked off, arrested, detained, killed, or exorcised.

And Liz was good at finding what made their targets tick. She found the chinks in their armor like it was nothing.

After a second and then a third incident took place where Red suddenly appeared in her home and she confronted him about it, she discovered two things: 1) His visits coincided with her thinking of him, and 2) he couldn't lie to her.

Clearly, he was frustrated with the second issue, because more than once, she watched him wind up for some epic mistruth and watch the feigned disdain slip into place, only to see his surprise when his mouth was saying the opposite of what he intended.

At first, she took extreme pleasure in forcing him to pop up when she needed him on a case, or made sure she was the only one in the room if she asked a question she needed answered. But it was clear to her he hated being a puppet on strings, and after one spectacular event where she finagled info on a target out of him that he hadn't intended to give her, intel that might threaten to reveal his work with the FBI, they had a stare down for a moment that stretched far too long.

Liz watched him, challenging, defiant, angry with the situation, and the expression was reflected back at her.

He popped out of her office that time, all on his own.

He was less domineering after that, instead seeking her assistance, asking for her help with cases and targets. On occasion, doors would suddenly open if her arms were full, and chairs were graciously pulled out.

"Don't look now," Ressler warned her one day after Red had been particularly complacent. "But I think our Ghost with the Most might have a crush on you."

At least he wasn't trailing after her like a kicked puppy.

Tom had been clingy since his time in the hospital, and while she initially had excused it as trauma from what had happened to him - he believed what he remembered about Zamani to be half-hallucinated, and she let him think that, since he woke up with no recollection of his time wandering around during his coma - she was starting to grow tired of his near-constant complaints about how much time she spent at work. She knew the typical reactions of victims to aggressive assault, and he wasn't showing them.

To be perfectly honest, it seemed like the only times he was affected by what had happened was when he accusatorily brought it up in an argument with her. Her decision to stop pursuing adoption was also a frequent source of fights at home.

She jumped at the chance to take any assignment that meant staying overnight someplace away - the back of a surveillance van, a shitty hotel, a chair in a warehouse, it didn't matter. She knew she was avoiding a problem, a big one, but she wasn't sure how to fix it, or if it could be fixed. She was afraid she was losing her small piece of 'normal' and didn't know how to stop it.

Of course it was Red that noticed first. She anticipated some sort of comment on his part, something that would help grow the seed of mistrust already there in her marriage, or at least for him to say 'I told you so', but it never came.

Liz had volunteered to go over surveillance footage from their current case, thoughtless, long work that required her to brew a pot of coffee and hunker down in front of a computer in a tiny closet of a room for the night to watch hours of footage from a security camera in Italy.

The fresh, steaming cup of coffee hovering just to her left at eye level caused her jump in her seat.

"You know, I have a series of homes around the area I like to haunt - pardon the pun," he informed her, leaning against the doorway, hands in his pockets, watching the screens with the sort of innocent curiosity that was anything but. "If you ever need the use of one, it's a simple matter of Dembe making a phone call - or I could text. That's a new trick of mine."

Liz rolled her eyes, crossing her arms and leaning back in her chair, still watching the footage. "Yes, I figured that out after the 'Boo' text I got. I was a little surprised you didn't go all out and throw the ghost emoji in there, too."

Red sighed dramatically. "Touch screens are so difficult. I'm stuck with a flip phone for now."

She reached out for the coffee, gave it an experimental sip, and found it had been prepared to her liking. She gave him a slight, appreciative dip of her head before pointing out, "You didn't have a problem with my GPS."

There was a pause before he answered. He gave a small, deprecating laugh. "You give me far too much credit, Agent Keen."

She ignored that - it was probably just another attempt at lying to her that was ruined by whatever connection they had. Admitting weakness went against the entire persona that he kept.

Liz went back to reviewing the CCTV loop with a sip of the coffee.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that telltale glow and laughed, twisting to see him now 'seated' in the desk chair next to her.

"It's not like your legs get tired."

He shot her an affronted look. "I could just _hover_ , but I've been told that's _unsettling_ for most people and _weird_."

Liz made an exasperated noise. "That was _one_ time! You were making the witness nervous."

"One time is enough."

They settled into comfortable silence, watching the footage slightly sped up on the double monitors.

With no audio to pay attention to, her mind wandered.

If he were alive, she'd run the risk of brushing shoulders with him.

If he had been alive, they were so close in the tiny room she would have felt his body heat. Smelled his cologne - there was a faint whiff now and then, some scent she knew but couldn't identify from her childhood. Something common, then.

He shifted in the seat, moving to face her. He tilted his head to the side. It was like he knew what she was thinking, and not for the first time.

Part of her didn't want to know if that was true.

"How did you die?" The question came out quietly, gently, but she found herself to be truly curious. "Before you say 'You should have read that in my file,' I'll remind you my security access is restricted."

He frowned. "They don't trust you?"

"Something about a criminal mastermind ghost having some knowledge of me and asking to work with seems to rub the higher-ups the wrong way."

Liz repeated the question.

His face was wiped clean of emotion. She watched the play of his jaw working, like he was trying to figure out how to answer her without a lying but also without the truth. She paused the video with a fairly vicious tap at the spacebar on her keyboard.

"That's like asking a woman what she weighs," Red chided her.

"That's a bullshit, sexist answer."

Liz waited, arms crossed on her chest, the warm mug resting in one hand. She took a sip with a patient look. She wasn't going anywhere. They both knew she could call him right back if he left.

He seemed to deflate a little. "Asphyxia," he declared, staring at her, daring her to look away, to back down, shaping the words in a way that bared his lower teeth more than normal, like the hint of a snarl. "The best way I could have gone, I think. Waste of a face like mine, otherwise."

Liz let her head rest on the side wall behind her, giving him silence, allowing him to continue if he wanted.

He didn't. The spacebar moved up and down, and the video continued to play once more.

The quiet grew, expanding between them. She wasn't sure what to say, felt like he had more to add to that statement, and it wasn't her turn to speak yet.

A few minutes later, he exhaled heavily, purely for effect, before saying, "If I were still alive, I'd be in my fifties."

The comment came out before she even gave it much thought. "Well you look good for your age," she muttered flatly, not moving her eyes from the screen.

The resulting higher-pitched giggle was so entirely unexpected she had to whip her head around to make sure it was coming from him.

It had. His shoulders moved with the sound and something about the smile on his lips triggered an upward twitch at the corner of hers.

"Agent Keen, you never cease to surprise me," he finally said.

It was that strange time of night where she found herself the most open, the most vulnerable. The tension of the day was gone and tension was broken between them. They went back to watching the footage for a while in relaxed quiet.

"Have you ever been to Perugia?"

Liz gave him a dubious look. "You've been haunting me for years, I think you already know the answer to that - just...just launch into your monologue already." She punctuated the command with a permissive wave of her hand.

"I do not...mean to monologue." Halfway through the sentence, the words were strangled, and she knew his defensive, initially intended answer was a lie. They both did.

"Perugia," she prompted, before he had time to dwell and grow angry.

"Like you even want to hear it," he muttered darkly. If he hadn't spent decades trying to make himself look older than he was, she imagined he'd be pouting.

"I do," she quickly assured him. His eyebrows flew upwards into his dated, floppy bangs and immediately, her eyes widened, earnest. "No, really. I _do_."

It seemed to smooth his pride. His shoulders relaxed slightly. "Perugia is gorgeous - you'd love it. Breathtaking views of the Umbrian countryside. This street in the security feed? There's countless more. They have this incredible jazz festival. Dembe and I make a point of going every year...and the EuroChocolate festival! It's positively decadent, sinfully so."

"Can you even taste the food?" she asked with a light laugh.

Her mirth died a quick death when his responding smile was a crooked, bitter thing, and she almost wanted to apologize for asking the question.

"No," he said. "The wrong side of the death certificate means no taste and no smell. They're a close second and third on the list of things I miss."

The brunette woman watched the change in him, saw he'd grown serious, somber.

"What's number one?"

For the briefest of moments, Red's eyes flitted to her scarred left hand, but he looked away and swallowed, some residual nervous response.

"Touch," he replied, voice tight. "I can touch other ghosts, but real touch, that's something I miss."

He was looking in the direction of the screen, but at something beyond them when he continued. He ran his hand through his hair and it stood on end for a half-second before returning to it's feathered normal appearance. He looked young and yearning and vulnerable.

"God," he laughed. "I'd be such a hedonist if I was still alive, if I knew what I knew. I have this list of things I'd want, things I'd probably do...just about anything to experience."

She knew she was at some sort of edge, a tipping point between bizarre, professional friendliness and...something more, something more personal. Liz took the step over the line anyway and asked "Like what?" in a voice that was a little hoarse.

Red closed his eyes. "I'd want to feel the surge as ten racehorses go thundering by. A meal in Paris, at L'Ambroisie, at the Place des Vosges. I want another bottle of wine. And then another. I want the warmth of a woman and a cool set of sheets. I want to stand on the summits and smoke Cubans and feel the sun on my face for as long as I can. Most of all I want to sleep. I want to sleep like I slept when I was a boy. Give me that, just one time."

There was a tightness in her chest and an itch in her fingertips, like they wanted to curl around his in a gesture of comfort.

Suddenly feeling like they both were a little too emotionally exposed, Liz tried to lighten the mood. "I should just ask you for travel recommendations, since you've traveled so much. Tom wants to take me on vacation."

His eye twitched a little as he gave her a grimace masquerading as a close-lipped smile. "There's enough to see and do in DC to entertain you both," he ultimately remarked.

They passed the rest of the time silently, until she found the clip with their suspect wandering by and she dove back into her work. He disappeared for a while, but at one point she looked down and found the mug next to her elbow had been refilled.

She took a moment to enjoy the taste of the coffee, the bitter and sweet on her tongue, its warmth.

He was there beside her before she even realized the direction of her thoughts.

"What is it?" he asked her.

"It's…" she trailed off and shook her head, before saying instead. "Thank you."

"Think nothing of it, Agent Keen," was his brusque reply.

Liz bit her lip for a second, debating on whether not to say it.

"Red."

"Yes?"

"You can call me 'Liz.'"


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Liz thrust the frame out in front of her, like a cross in one of those old vampire flicks. "What the hell is this?" she hissed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N Still don't own any of it.
> 
> Warning: A little bit of sex and violence this chapter.

**A** ram knocked on her door, but didn't enter. "Are you coming?"

Liz dropped the folder she'd been reading through back onto her desk. "Go where?"

"It's Meera, she's asked to go to the Room."

The seated woman stared at him blankly. Even though she had been tentatively accepted by most of the others in the Morgue, there were a lot of things she was still left out of. Her connection with Red had many coworkers holding her at arm's length.

Not Meera, though. The two were fairly close, and Liz admired the hell out of how easily she'd adapted to their division. The CIA agent shared Cooper's ability to determine when someone was lying, and after it was discovered, they'd transferred her to the Morgue.

"The Room?" Liz echoed as she pushed out of her chair.

Aram gave her an apologetic look - he was probably one of the friendliest of her coworkers, although it may have had something to do with the fact that she actually listened when he explained his work, or that she kept Red from terrorizing him. His technopath skills were incredible, but he fairly skittish about anything involving the dead.

"No one told you - sorry! We've got a room here where you can place something you'd come back for if, you know…" he flapped his hand, ducking his head. When it was obvious she didn't know what he was trying to imply, he huffed. "When you die, it's a way of sticking around. Unfinished business. I mean, the whole 'coming back as a ghost' thing isn't an exact science, and it doesn't work with everyone, but it seems to help."

Before long, a small group of agents were assembled in the Room, a meeting room down a deserted hallway with one long conference table in the center of it, filled with an interesting variety of items. There were several unfinished puzzles, with just one or two pieces missing. There were photos and keys and folded up notes. She spied an old copy of a comic book as well.

Meera had only asked a few people to come with her - the process was very private, Liz realized, and she was touched that she was included - and she pulled a baggie out of her pocket.

There were two locks of hair in it. Small bits of hair, dark and glossy, with rubber bands wrapped around them. Meera placed it reverently on the table.

"I'd come back for my kids," she announced. "I'd come back to make this world safer for them, just like I do now."

The process took only a few minutes, but it felt official, and the group decided to go on their lunch break together for the most morbid celebration ever. Liz was walking along with Aram when something on the wall caught her eye.

"I'll catch up," she promised him as she slowed to a stop.

There were a series of frames on the wall, certificates, news clippings, and photos, all framed and almost all hung straight.

One of those photos, a little faded with time, showed a group of men around a folding card table. The room must have been dark, because the flash caused everyone in the photo to stand bleached and bright in contrast to the dark wood paneling in the background.

She recognized Director Cooper, much younger and happier, and Raymond Reddington was standing next to him, an arm around his shoulders, but it was the man on Red's other side that caught her attention.

She pulled the frame off the wall and stalked towards the Box.

Red had interfered with a sting operation the day before, personally sending a text to their target, and even while he'd explained he was trying to gain the man's confidence to make it easier to gain the intel they needed, Cooper had ordered her to call him into the Box, and say his name three times. He'd been more than slightly pissed with her, but she'd explained she was doing her job, the job he'd demanded she do in the first place.

The heels of her boots striking bare concrete as she approached him echoed loudly. Liz thrust the frame out in front of her, like a cross in one of those old vampire flicks.

"What the hell is this?" she hissed.

Red, who had been hovering on his back just above the cot in the Box, sat up to squint at the photo. "Harold is in the photo, too," he pointed out, like a kid throwing a sibling under the bus.

"I figured I'd get a _better_ answer out of you."

"That is true," he said far too casually. "For someone who knows when anyone else is lying, he has the best damn poker face I've ever seen."

Their fierce, locked gaze lasted for only a few seconds before Liz's shoulders slumped, and she pulled the photo to her chest.

"Why didn't you tell me you knew Sam?"

Red stood, moved to the front of the Box, passing a hand through his hair as he leaned against the structure. "I still _know_ him. That's not past tense...He just hasn't been able to see me."

Liz opened her mouth, countless questions all sitting at the tip of her tongue, but she shut her mouth when Red tipped his head to the side and glanced in the direction of one of the cameras.

Right. She forgot about them in that moment of confusion and anger.

Her Dad was a retired magician, Sam Scott, the Psychic, a man who had experienced some popularity in the Midwest years earlier. He still was recognized from time to time while he was out buying groceries. He had twitter followers.

She _knew_ her father didn't have her ability, so how did he know both Cooper and Red? She wanted answers. Honest ones.

She sighed. Cooper had told her to bench Red until they needed him on a case, and it would be recorded if she turned off the EM pumps, or called him to her somewhere else. Liz wouldn't be able to chalk it up to an accident if it happened, since she'd gotten better at _not_ thinking about him.

That was a lie: She'd gotten better at _stopping_ herself from thinking about him. She'd gotten better at it because she was thinking about him more often, and thereby had more opportunity to practice clearing her mind. It was some real Jedi shit for her, harder even than forcing herself not to see the dead when she was off-duty.

Because the more time she spent with him, the more she noticed about him. Like just how goddamn smart he was, always several steps ahead of everyone else. Or, much to her complete internal mortification, how long his eyelashes were, despite their light coloring. How well he wore his suit.

She wasn't even going to address the voice.

And noticing those things was all fine and good (okay, it totally wasn't) when she was in a room with him - and he'd shoot her some knowing, flirty glance which only just helped to confirm her growing suspicions that he was somehow aware of what she was thinking - but she had to try very hard not to think about him at home, with Tom. Or really any other time.

He was watching her expectantly, eyes shining and the hint of a smirk on his lips, resting his head on the forearm running along the frame of the Box, and Liz suddenly realized she was openly staring at him.

She cleared her throat, blinking rapidly. "Aram's probably looking for me," she said, excusing herself quickly.

Back at her desk, she ran her fingers over her scar, and trailed them up to her wedding ring.

She was married. _Married_. To Tom Keen. But honestly she wasn't sure how long even that was going to last. They were constantly on one another's nerves, and two nights ago, she all-out told him there would be no baby and no vacation in the near future and he hadn't spoken to her since.

Tonight was a parent-teacher conference night. She could take Hudson for a walk and then unwind in peace. Think in a silence not ruined by her husband sulking in some corner of the house.

She was overdue for a visit to her Dad. She'd tell him then, about thinking about leaving Tom. Ask him about the photo. Find out what her connection was to...to the photo. That worked for her. Think about the photo and not who was in it.

Liz went home that night and smothered Hudson in affection, who could barely contain his excitement at her behavior. Their walk was longer than it typically was, but she didn't mind. The November air was crisp, and it helped clear her head.

Energy now burned, Liz and her dog made their way back home; seeing no lights on and no car at the street was a blessing. She let out a long breath as she opened the door and let them into the quiet.

A bath, that's what she was going to take. An honest-to-god, completely unnecessary and steaming hot bath. She'd crack open a bottle of wine and put on one of her CDs, one of the ones Tom hated. She was going to enjoy her privacy.

Liz couldn't help the appreciative moan that escaped her lips when a short time later, she sank into the hot, aromatic water in her bathtub. A towel behind her head, her hair up in a clip, she slid her arms along the sides of the tub and closed her eyes.

Who needed a vacation when this was right in her house waiting for her?

Nina Simone sang about Lilac Wine from her old CD player on the counter as Liz sipped her own, which she was resting beside the tub on the stool with the CD player remote next to it. She didn't feel like dealing with one of the wine glasses, so she'd poured it into a Solo cup leftover from their housewarming party. Maybe classless, but she wouldn't have to wash it when she was done.

What would Red thi-No, no couldn't think like that. She took a furious sip and dropped her head back again. She didn't care what anyone thought about how she was drinking her half-decent wine. She needed to relax. Unwind.

Making sure she definitely had the house to herself by pausing the music for a second with the remote, she strained to listen for any sign of her husband or the other person known to pop up suddenly in her day, and decided that yes, she was alone.

Liz let one hand slide down from the edge of the tub and under the water's surface.

She couldn't remember that last time she'd had a good orgasm, a good see-stars and curl-your-toes one. She couldn't even remember the last time she and Tom had actually had sex - it had been weeks, almost a month. She could remember what she'd had for dinner every night for the past week (mostly), but she couldn't remember the last time she and her husband had fucked.

Her eyes opened and she stared at the ceiling above the tub and let out air between her pursed lips. She couldn't even masturbate without needing to remind herself to focus.

Determined, she shut her eyes again and let her mind wander as she touched herself, tried to replace her hand with someone else's in her mind's eye - not Tom, just a generic, attractive -

Immediately, her brain supplied the memory of Red passionately describing a painting earlier that week. She could stare at his hands for hours, they were mesmeriz-

"Agent Keen, I know it's hard not to thi-"

Liz yelped. Her eyes flew open in panic, finding Red already there and staring at her, gaping and just as shocked really, and she grabbed at the edges of the tub, then mindlessly threw the remote at him before scrambling to cover herself with a towel before she remembered there was a quicker way of fixing the situation.

"Reddington, Redd-"

The door to the bathroom flew open.

Hudson was barking at her husband's heels as he entered the room. Red took his time turning to look in Tom's direction, which was unfortunate because Tom was already pulling out a 50 caliber brushed chrome Desert Eagle and firing it at him.

Nothing happened, of course, because Red was a ghost, and already dead. The bullet flew into the wall and cracked the tiling.

Tom had told her he'd remembered nothing of his time in a coma. He _shouldn't_ have remembered any of it. The only way he would have remembered was if…

He was looking directly at Red.

"You lied to me."

Tom's focal point moved from Red to his wife, and after he blinked, it softened, his eyes widened.

"Lizzie, this is for your own good. I need you to trust m-"

"You lying son of bitch!" she shouted, and completely mindless of her current state of undress, launched herself out of the tub at him, grabbing the old CD player and swinging it at his arm. Surprise on her side, the gun was knocked out of his grip, but her wet feet on the bare tile worked against her.

Tom spun her around, getting her in a choke hold.

"Lizzie, you need to calm down."

She stumbled, trying to get a foot behind him, trying to trip him at worst, hopefully throw over her shoulder, but it wasn't working. His forearm continued to press at her throat and she clawed at his skin.

"I would if my husband wasn't trying to _choke_ me," she ground out.

The hair dryer suddenly levitated off of the counter and sailed at Tom's head. He jerked his head to the side to avoid it, but Liz saw both things at once: the murderous intent on Red's face, and in the mirror, she saw the reflection of the blow dryer returning to bludgeon the back of Tom's head.

Hudson chose that moment to get underfoot. Tom started to trip, and his grip on Liz loosened as he fell into her from behind. The tub was too far away for her to reach for to stop her fall as the floor tiles came towards her face in a dizzying rush.

Vaguely, she was aware of Red yelling her name. He was reaching out to her, but she saw the fear on his face, the realization that he couldn't stop what was about to happen.

It didn't hurt as much as she thought it would when her head smacked against the tile. Almost immediately, Tom started to flip her over on her back, to grab at her hands. The room spun, but she noticed he'd grabbed up the cord of the hair dryer and she tried to send a message to her hands to _move_ , damn it _move_ , but they weren't listening to instruction.

And then suddenly Tom was yelling, and gone. There was a thud somewhere else in the house. It sounded like it was at the bottom of the stairs.

Hudson was barking at her but she was very aware she couldn't really move - she remembered then that one of her knees at hit the floor first. If she wasn't so disoriented, she probably would be able to feel if it was broken or not.

"Liz, Lizzie, talk to me."

She hadn't even realized she had closed her eyes. It took a huge effort to lift her eyelids.

Red was kneeling over her, frantic. "Can you hear me?"

She groaned. Felt nauseous. She was flat on her back but the floor was tilting under her.

She tried to warn him she was about to blackout but she wasn't sure if she got the words out. Again, he reached out for her, his hand, so transparent in the bright light of her bathroom coming close to her face as he repeated her name.

The pain in her head bloomed into the flames of her nightmares, the recurring one she knew full well to be an actual, fragmented memory from her childhood. Flames. Heat pressing at her chest making it hard to breathe. Her singed, stuffed rabbit in hand.

And then a hospital bed. Maybe something shifted in her head and allowed her to regain some lost fragment, long buried in the back of her recollection of the incident that had led to Sam adopting her. She probably had thick gauze around her hand, but she couldn't move to see it.

There was a large man in sweats sitting at the end of her bed, watching the TV. The dim twilight on a harbor was visible out the window.

Something wasn't right. The feeling of weightlessness was leaving her in a strange rush, a mutated twin of her fall before, and just as she would have made impact, she was inhaling deeply and staring up at her ceiling again, but it was disorienting, because she was rising towards it. She couldn't feel the tile beneath her.

Ressler was leaning over her. There was definitely someone at her head, and another person at her feet. She could hear the chirp of walkie talkies. Her robe was draped over her - she recognized its weight and felt the pressure of straps at her shoulders and hips. Saw the light blue terrycloth just at the corner of her field of vision. Felt it against her cheek.

"We got him, Keen," he assured her, and she could only look at him, frowning - not frowning actually, that hurt too much. There was something on her forehead preventing her from moving too much, anyway.

Liz closed her eyes again, disappearing into soft darkness behind her eyes.

When she woke up again, she was in a dimly lit hospital bed.

The layout of the room was wildly different from the one she'd dreamed about before. There was a steady beeping from the heart monitor. Her head ached and stung worse than any hangover she'd ever had. She hissed when she tried to sit up, and looked down to notice a cast on her leg.

She remembered struggling with Tom, and falling…

And what had happened before all of that.

The heart monitor started to chirp a little faster.

"Bruising to the throat and elbow, a fractured patella which will require surgery, and a concussion - they ruled out a skull fracture. Your nurse has woken you up a couple times, but you were still pretty out of it."

Red was seated in the chair next to her bed. His ethereal glow didn't look out of place with all of the monitors and other equipment in the room. For a dead man, he looked drained. Exhausted.

"Hello to you, too," she croaked, and when she tried to give him a lopsided smile, her lip cracked and she winced.

His response was quick. The lid on her water cup popped off, and an ice chip made its way to delicately sit against her lip. The cold jarred her, but it also helped her feel a little more awake.

"Tom's in custody. You have a security detail at your door, and I have my own surveillance _actually_ watching your room and not trying to get a better score on Angry Birds," he briefed her. "Tom's not saying anything, but it won't take long for Meera to beat it out of him."

She closed her eyes, exhaling shakily. She remembered what had happened all too well. Her fingers groped around until they reached the ice cube to move it so she could talk. "He tried to...do I remember that right? Was he trying to tie me up?"

When she didn't get an answer, she pried open an eyelid to look over at the chair. Red wasn't looking at her, but she could see the tension of his jaw in his profile.

"Yes," he affirmed for her, gruffly. His fingers flexed on the chair's armrests. "Yes he was."

They were both silent as Lizzie processed that. All those attempts to go on vacation, to make it a 'surprise' for her, to keep her in the dark.

"Do you think he's been trying to kidnap me?" she posited out loud. She didn't wait for an answer, even as tears made her vision swim. "You told me not to trust him. You _told_ me. And I didn't want to listen."

"People don't want to see the worst in their loved ones," he replied. "He wouldn't have tried to use force if…" Red folded his hands in his lap, fidgeting in the seat. "If things had gone the way I'm sure he planned for them to go."

Tom and his motives would have to wait for another time, when her head didn't hurt as much.

She cleared her throat. "Did you text someone at the Morgue?"

He nodded.

If he hadn't been there, well, she probably would still be completely unaware of Tom or his motives. If he hadn't stayed, she would be who knows where with the stranger she'd been married to for two years.

"Thank you," she whispered.

"You're being remarkably calm about all of this," he observed, looking over at her with concern.

"Shock, concussion, and painkillers," she explained with a tired sigh, settling back into the pillows, wiping her wet fingers on the knit blanket. Otherwise, she didn't think she'd be handling everything so well. Liz closed her eyes, feeling exhaustion starting to make her limbs heavy.

Red cleared his throat. "So are we going to talk about...Nina Simone?"

Liz scrunched her eyelids tight. "I'm not _that_ out of it, Red," she answered, pained.

"I can only show up like that if you're thinking about me," he reminded her, but there was a hint of something gleeful about his voice.

He couldn't lie to her, but she could.

"Don't flatter yourself," she mumbled at him.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I thought you've always been around."
> 
> "Not in a 'Every Breath You Take' kind of way," he refuted, slightly defensive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Don't own it.

**A** ny normal person looking down at the street from the apartment complex would have seen a solitary brunette walking - well, limping really - towards the black, sleek waiting car and the tall, muscular bald man standing beside it.

They might have recognized her as the newest tenant to the complex, the one with the dog. The one who spent a lot of time on her cellphone, with the odd habit of speaking at the air beside her the entire time she did.

She was on the phone a lot, like now, pinching the phone between her shoulder and ear while swinging her leg in the cast as best she could to hurry along.

Liz greeted Dembe before accepting his offer of assistance as she fell into the backseat, taking the crutches and dropping them to the floor. She happily tossed her cell onto the seat as well.

"Anyone ever ask you about your minutes, Dembe? Because my entire apartment building wants to know what kind of unlimited plan I have since I always have my phone at my ear."

"He mostly speaks _at_ me," the man in the driver's seat replied.

"Oh he does the same to me," Liz assured him, a smile attempting to push past her false long-suffering expression. "I just don't have your patience. What's your trick, yoga?"

"Interior decorating."

Liz risked a glance sideways and saw that the car's silent occupant was staring straight ahead, cheeks hollowed and unhappy lips pursed.

"Lighten up," she cajoled.

"I'm dead, not deaf," Red groused. "If I had known introducing you two would lead to this I never would have done it."

"I for one am glad he did," Dembe chimed, and Liz echoed the same sentiment.

Over the last few weeks, Red had learned to get out of the Box, and Cooper had thrown his hands up in defeat. Now, from time to time, she had to answer the Concierge of Crime's calls and hurry to wherever he was. He was only gloating slightly over the turned tables.

Liz had been learning to adapt to the situation, to work at the Morgue, seeing as it didn't seem like it would be changing anytime soon. She was trying to embrace the world she was now fully in. It wasn't like she had any shred of 'normal' to cling to anymore.

Meera and a telepath had spent a lot of time trying to get info out of Tom, but he'd clearly learned to block them. They came out with a drawing, a strange, crooked Y-shaped symbol, something that popped up in Tom's mind. Liz knew the symbol well - it matched the scarring on her hand and wrist, the same scar she'd thought she'd received in the fire.

Liz and Hudson had packed up their things and moved to a smaller apartment following the fight with Tom. It was a new building. Liz even had the apartment blessed. She burned sage from time to time. Red aside, she wasn't taking chances.

She leaned forward between the two front seats. "Thank you, _both_ of you, for driving me to therapy. My alarm clock apparently died last night," Liz shot an accusatory glance in Red's direction, although he only frowned at her in response, "and there was no way I'd have made it to my appointment without your help."

"Anytime," Dembe assured her.

Quite quickly, they pulled up in front of the rehab facility. She was counting the weeks before she'd have the cast off so she wouldn't be stuck on desk duty - a desire that surprised her, since she'd accepted a desk position when she'd transferred to DC originally.

Then again, she'd thought it would be a safer position for a soon-to-be mother.

There were a couple of baby items she'd donated that had been bought, predominantly by Tom, and mostly from situations she realized in hindsight where he'd been attempting to manipulate her. It was such an easy button to push with her, too, the 'I don't know why when you're perfectly healthy you don't want to carry the baby yourself' button. It wasn't like she would have told her husband back then that she didn't want to pass her ability to child.

"You sure you want to go alone?" Red asked as Dembe opened the door for her. His hand reached out to cover hers on the seat between them when she went to grab the phone, and the resulting small jolt had her twitch slightly.

She was going to have to address it if he didn't stop it; she could understand how deprived he was, contact-wise, but she was tired of constantly getting the little jolts, like he'd just shuffled across carpet in socks before touching her. The other day, she had yelped when his hand moved to touch at the small of her back as he was guiding her towards a historic monument while they had been meeting a contact in Moscow. It wasn't even just skin-to-skin anymore, it was any attempt on his part to touch her.

She'd watched him walk right through Ressler recently, just to see the FBI agent who had been originally tasked with finding him shudder. She didn't want to think about what it would feel like if he attempted the same with her.

Yeah, better not to go there mentally.

They still had not discussed the 'Nina Simone' incident. They never would, if she got her way.

She shook out her hand, trying to ignore the zap as she pocketed her cell phone. "So you can make comments and faces that I can't respond to the entire appointment? Again? No thank you. I'm afraid the occupational therapist is going to send me for a PES eval after last time as it is, thank you very much."

She fixed him with a level gaze, partially because she was still trying to determine an answer for herself to her next statement. "Besides, you've figured out your new trick, so why would you want to hang around me anymore than necessary? You don't have to show up when I think about you, and I'm sure there's highly illegal business you have to go attend to."

He kept his face impassive. "So glad you understand, Lizzie," he drawled. He settled back in the seat, raising his arms and resting his head on his entwined fingers; the smile he shot her should have been a felony. "Just because I'm not entirely at your beck and call anymore doesn't mean I don't know when you _are_ thinking about me."

Liz turned away from him to get out of the car and take Dembe's offered hand after he took the crutches from her first, so she didn't have to let him see her shocked expression on her face.

She nearly fell back into the seat when she heard what Red was humming. The first three notes of 'Lilac Wine' left her face feeling hot and she swallowed as she tried to control her reaction. She was a grown woman, there was no reason for this.

"Enjoy your 'me' time!" he called after her before Dembe closed the door.

"Do me a favor Dembe," she asked as they made their way to the front door, "find some holy water and throw a little in his direction. You might have more time for your interior decorating."

Dembe covered his laugh with a feigned cough.

She was only about twenty minutes into her appointment when her cellphone rang, and she immediately hobbled over to it when she heard the Steve Miller Band song start to play.

They had just talked two days ago. She was supposed to call him tomorrow night, after Dancing with the Stars went off. She had put in a request for vacation time once her cast was off, so he wouldn't worry over her.

"Dad? Daddy, what's wrong?" she answered the phone without preamble.

She was happy she was sitting as the conversation continued, since the floor was pulled out from under her.

She knew she was crying openly in the center of the gym area. The therapist was eyeing her nervously. "Um," she sniffed and wiped at her eyes, fingers desperately tapping out the phone number for Dembe, "I'm going to have to call end my session," she informed her.

She hadn't even finished the call when she looked up and saw the person she was ultimately trying to contact.

The halogen light directly above them flickered.

He was standing over her, a worried look on his face and his eyes wide and round as he surveyed her for a moment before jerking his head in the direction of the bathrooms.

Liz excused herself, explained it was a family emergency, and shuffled off.

As soon as the door swung shut, she heard the lock engage behind her, and Red assured her the room was empty before asking "What's wrong?"

She wiped at her cheeks, knowing full well she was probably a snotty, red-blotched mess. "I thought you said you didn't-"

"-You needed me," he cut her off, more than slightly impatient. His hands opened and flexed at his sides. "What's wrong? What is it?"

"It's...it's Dad. He's sick again."

Red actually took a step back from her, surprise and disappointment clearly showing on his face.

"Liz," he simply said, but she could hear the sympathy in it.

She was feeling a little less unhinged. The dead man in front of her was a good actor, but she could practically feel the shock he felt. Good. They were both knocked over by the news.

The woman wiped at her face, taking one last sniff. "You were there for it last time, right? When I visited him?"

He shook his head. "Just once."

Liz frowned as she reached around him for a tissue. "I thought you've always been around."

"Not in a 'Every Breath You Take' kind of way," he refuted, slightly defensive. "I knew about it, yes, but he seemed to be doing fine. I popped back to Saudi Arabia for an arms deal."

"I don't think he's doing fine this time," she told him shakily while pushing her hair out of her face. "My aunt went behind his back and called me, then. I mean, for him to call me, to ask me to come out as soon as I could…"

He watched her, an intense look on his features that made him look older, before saying suddenly. "We'll take the jet."

"Excuse me?"

"The jet. I've got a jet," he paused when someone knocked on the door and Lizzie shouted she'd be another minute. "I'll go tell Dembe to make the call," he licked his lips, watching her again, and something about the earnestness of his expression had her welling up with tears again.

Red still hadn't given her any more information about his connection to Cooper and her Dad. For a while she wondered if all the flirtation, all of the moments they'd shared, they only took place because he needed her to bring him closer to this 'side'. There were times she could see that he needed her and he hated it.

But seeing the look on his face now, it wasn't hate. It was genuine concern.

"Okay," she said quickly, before she lost it again. "Yeah. Thank you."

In the twenty minutes that passed between his disappearing and Dembe's car pulling up at the curb, Liz called the Morgue, and explained the situation to Cooper. She heard the pain in his voice, but he never let on to knowing her father personally.

Liz jiggled her good leg all the way from DC to Nebraska. Neither Red nor Dembe said anything.

She remembered the hospital from last time; she remembered meeting him after one of his appointments in Outpatient Infusion. It was spring, and sunny, and they'd hashed everything out in the pretty garden to the side of the building.

He was an inpatient this time, and she hated that his hospital room would only look out at grey, wintry skies.

His room was on the Oncology Unit. It was a nice room - a big, corner room. A nursing assistant tried to block Lizzie as she made her way to his door.

She pulled the lapel of her shirt out to show the visitor badge. "We're -" Liz stopped, and Red cleared throat. "I'm family."

The young man didn't seem convinced. "There was a reporter earlier today who said the same thing."

Peaking out of his scrub top was a tattoo of a playing card - the one with her dad's logo on it. That was why he cared so much.

"I'm his daughter, Elizabeth Milhoan Keen," she explained, feeling anxiety grow now that she was so close but still unable to get to the man who raised her; her name wasn't very well known by most Sam Scott's fans, but his actual name was. She brandished her badge as well, knowing that should work. "And I'm FBI. So I'm going to have to ask you to let me through."

Abracadabra.

She knocked on the door frame before entering. The lights were off, and the room was twilight dim. Sam Milhoan's eyes were closed, and she felt panic for a second. "Dad?" she asked, voice pitching high.

He opened his eyes slowly. He rolled his head to the side to look at the doorway, squinting.

"Butterball," he crooned, smiling, and Liz gripped the doorjamb. The small shock from Red's hand on her back was grounding; it let her know this was real, and not some horrible nightmare.

She took a deep breath. Smiled even though it hurt her cheeks. "Hey Daddy," she greeted, walking into the room, pulling the chair closer to his bedside.

A glance around the room worried her; there should have been more equipment monitoring him. There was barely anything.

"You're not wearing your wedding ring," he noted, frowning. "I know you said things were tough, but I didn't know they were that bad."

"It was for the best."

Red snorted, keeping his distance at the door, arms crossed as he leaned against the wall.

"What happened to your leg?" Sam asked her.

"It's nothing, it's fine," she quickly assured him. "I'm here for you."

Her father's skin was pale, papery. She noticed his movements were slow. Her throat was tight and her heart beat heavy in her chest. She gripped his fingers like she could anchor him.

And instantly, his worried face transitioned to something close to heartbreak.

"You weren't supposed to find out," he breathed, eyes closing. "You weren't supposed to know about the Morgue."

She sat a little straighter.

"I saw a picture of you with Cooper and Red-" She stopped when he squeezed her hand more tightly and struggled to try to sit up. It triggered a coughing fit that had him falling back into his pillows.

"You know better than to say his name, Butterball. I know they told you about that," he said when he caught his breath. Then he looked at her with that sort of pin-point clarity he typically reserved for his audience during his most dramatic reveals. "You've met him."

Well that explained quite a bit about the success of his show; she'd chalked it up to keen observation skills. She slipped her hand out of his, fearing what else he might see. "Dad, how long have you known about this?"

"Longer than you've been alive," he said with a raspy chuckle. "Oh sweetheart, I should have told you sooner. I shouldn't have waited until now."

"Hey, don't talk like that," she whispered harshly, feeling something like desperation claw up her throat and come out in her words. "What are the doctor's saying? What kind of - do we need to bring in a different doctor, or is there some kind of drug we can get? Dad, whatever it takes, whatever the cost, I'll pay for it."

"It's too far along," he responded, as gently as possible. "They were trying to move me to the hospice unit a couple days ago, but they didn't have a bed. But that's okay. It's probably too quiet up there...after all of these years of listening to people's thoughts, after trying so hard to find quiet, it's kind of funny that I didn't want to die someplace quiet," he chuckled, a scratchy breathy sound.

"I wasn't going to say anything, but then I realized just how _tired_ ," he breathed the word, like it resonated in every one of his sick cells, "I really was, and I knew I had to call. I want to make sure we get a proper goodbye. That I get to tell you how much I love you before it happens.

"I didn't expect you so soon. This is good, though. This is better. Didn't know if you'd-"

Liz whipped her head around to see what had caught her father's attention enough to distract him mid-sentence.

Her dad was looking right at Red.

Her own horror was reflected back on the dead man's face.

"Jesus Christ," her father exclaimed with a shaky laugh. "I guess this really is it. It's good to see you, Ray."

"No, it's not," the younger man retorted, pushing off the wall and coming closer. Moving away from the brightness of the hallway, Liz could see his eyes were glossy, could see how tightly he held his frame. "But hello anyway."

Hope was slipping out of her tenuous grasp and spiraling away from her.

"I'd tell you to ease up on my kid, Ray," her father said, warmly, "but I saw that she's been giving you the hell you deserve."

Red stuck his hands in his pockets, coming to stand Liz's chair and the foot of the bed. The only reason she knew the smile he flashed his old friend was counterfeit thanks to her time spent with him. He looked at her. "You take after your dad like that."

"No, no, it's all her," Sam said, beaming at her even as he addressed Red. "It's always been. Right from that first moment."

A nurse popped her head in the door, and Liz could see it in her expression, professionally apologetic. She asked if her father needed anything, and he grabbed onto his daughter's hand, raising it a little.

"I've got what I need...Thank you for everything."

Liz knew a goodbye when she saw one.

After the nurse walked away, Sam's eyes slid from his daughter's tear-stained face to Red's. "You need to tell her everything, Red. She deserves the truth."

Liz wiped at her face with one hand, grabbing her father's with the other. "Dad, Dad _you_ can tell me whatever it is. Even if you...even _after_. I'll still be able to see you. Still hear you." She was talking to him, but assuring herself at the same time. "This isn't goodbye, Daddy."

Sam stared at her for a moment, and then opened up his arms wide. "Come here, Butterball."

Liz didn't even care that Red saw the awkward hug or the transition into it. She buried her face in her father's neck, pretended he smelled like cigarettes and his cologne, and not like a hospital. Not like death.

His hand smoothed over her hair, like they did when she was a child. "You were sunshine from the day I laid eyes on you. I've done everything I could to keep you like that - safe, innocent. Spent years trying to keep you from seeing the nasty parts of life. I shouldn't have. I should have helped you better. Taught you not to fear it."

Liz pulled back a little, sitting up but remaining perched on the bed. "Dad, you couldn't have known-"

His eyes were closed when he shook his head. "It was like teaching you to ride a bike," he muttered.

"Training wheels," he sighed. "Never took them off. Should have. But I just saw those things in your head, little bits of what you saw. Wanted to keep you away from that."

His eyes were open, but only a little. "Love you so much, Lizzie."

She didn't want to say it to him then, fearing illogically that saying the words would allow this to continue. "I love you too, Dad."

His eyes shut, and he smiled a little. Liz ran her thumb methodically over his knuckles in her grasp, assuring him she was still there.

His breathing grew more shallow, and he frowned a little. There was less strength in the curl of his fingers around hers, and she held on to every second of that last moment, until his hand was limp, and his chest wasn't moving, and a monitor was giving off one long, official whining note.

She heard a choked sort of noise behind her, twisting to look over her shoulder at Red.

"I guess I really get to say goodbye to you, too, Ray."

Her father stood on the other side of the bed, close to the wall, faint but appearing as he had looked in the bed seconds before. His cooling hand was still in her grip as she looked at his ghost.

The other man nodded, and Liz could see him swallow. "You deserve the rest. Goodbye, Samuel. You lived a long-"

"No!" Liz shouted, springing up off of the bed. "No."

"I watched over her all these years," Sam said, fixing Red with a serious look. "You promised me you'd do the same."

"I have," Red replied, somber, his voice thick. "I will. Always."

"Stop," Liz said, desperately. "Dad you don't have to go. Red, stop him."

The younger man shook his head. "It's his time Liz. There's - you can't see it, but there's-"

Sam had turned to look at something she couldn't see. "It's beautiful," he breathed, before facing his daughter. "Oh sweetheart, please don't be angry with me. I can't...I'm tired. I want to _rest_. I-I have lived a long, happy life, and that's very much thanks to you. I'm proud of you Elizabeth."

"Please," she begged, already knowing it was futile. "Please don't leave me alone." She threw a begging look in Red's direction, but he did nothing and her heart hurt. The faint pang of betrayal stung in her chest.

Her father shook his head. "You aren't, sweetheart. You've never been." He took a small step backwards, smiling.

"I love you, Butterball."

He was gone.

Liz felt gentle hands on her shoulders as she continued to stare at the spot her father had just been in. The nurse was telling her she was sorry, so sorry, but her father had passed.

Someone had turned off the monitor.

Liz felt numb as she stared at her father's body. She felt chilled.

Liz registered the nurse's attempt at a comforting arm rub to go along with the gesture. "He held on for you," the woman told her, like it was supposed to help her, make it easier.

She looked over at Red.

"No, he didn't," Liz whispered coldly.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Liz and Red have a heart to heart. 
> 
> Well, a heart to sort-of heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Back from a forever long break! Don't own any of this.

**L** iz stared at the ceiling of her hotel room, finding patterns in the popcorn texture. She felt like she hadn't moved in days, felt as weighty as the invisible stone that weighed on her chest and dragged down her limbs.

She knew he was there before he even walked into her room.

"Reddington, Reddington, Reddington," she chanted quickly, and immediately there was a cacophony of crashing glass and clattering metal. She sat up on the bed, already feeling guilt sour and bloom in her mouth before seeing the damage.

The puddle of water remained, but Red was already in the process of causing the broken glass and the bagel, tray, and plate to lift up off the floor; his face was set with a sad, grim sort of look.

It had been days. Liz had spent most of the time crying, and sleeping on and off. The only time she felt awake, like she was coming up for air, was her time with her family for all the steps of laying her father's body to rest.

She'd blamed Red for the loss of her father, for not stopping him. She'd screamed. Knocked a lamp off of credenza. Whenever he came close to her, she's send him away, or keep him away, her own trick she's discovered during her rage and grief.

The sound of falling metal and breaking glass seemed to remain, ringing in her ears. Liz drew her knees up, resting her elbows on her comforter covered thighs, closed her eyes, and swallowed. She took a deep breath and pressed the palms of her hands into her eyes, rubbing them. Her sleep-dulled fingers swept over her face and came to rest, interwoven, at the back of her bowed neck. Everything felt gritty - the inside of her eyelids, her lips, her face, her throat.

For the first time in many days, she felt like she was awake and it _hurt_.

The lamp beside her bed flickered.

Red was back, standing at her door. His hands were in his pockets and his eyes were following along on the floor, tracing the line where the carpet patterns changed between the sitting area of the suite and her bedroom.

Before she could even see his face, a sympathetic wave of remorse swept over her, and she gritted her teeth. She had enough of her own sadness to deal without adding his to her shoulders.

How long had the link been between them? He'd probably been aware of everything she'd been feeling as well.

"I wish I could have made him stay," he whispered. He licked his lips and when he looked up at her, there was a split-second where he looked deer-in-the-headlights-and-scared-shitless young, but then decades of guilt and knowledge caught up with him.

"When it's your time, it's your time, though," he sighed.

From the tense movement of his lips, she knew that if she'd allowed him to be more corporeal for the moment, she would have seen him nervously swallowing, that left over-anxious habit somehow so humanizing.

His eyes darted to her shoulder, or maybe her headboard; she wasn't certain of where his gaze was directed, but it was very much intentionally not on her as he spoke next.

"And I've learned when it isn't your time, you can't hitch a ride." He added, quietly, "No matter how hard you try."

Her first attempt to say anything after that failed, words dying in her throat. She bowed her head and took a deep breath.

Liz was raised to live without apologies, and to be as self reliant as possible - Sam Smith was always a solo act, he never needed an opening act in his entire career and he was never interested in one. Her ability, when it flared up, made her isolated, but isolation felt a little less lonely when she didn't need to depend on others.

Reaching out to people had always been difficult.

Asking for things was harder, and forgiveness? Even more so.

"Red," she said, voice cracking on his name, dry and rough from lack of use and crying.

He shook his head. "You're grieving," he responded, dismissing, to spare her, his eyebrows rose, eyes downward, and she could see the facade starting to slip into place, but this time it was for her protection.

"No," she said forcefully, sitting up straight, surprising the beginning of an aloof look off of his face. "No, I - I was grieving, but that's not okay. I'm - I'm sorry, for blaming you. I shouldn't have blamed you."

Her sagging shoulders tensed back up a little when she remembered the photo in her bag.

"But I'm still mad about." She gave him a pointed look. "Whatever it was that you and my dad were talking about, that you two kept it from me. Right now though, this is me, this is me saying 'I'm sorry' for what I said. For how I acted."

Red shook his head, his mouth set in a grim line. "We shouldn't have - _I_ shouldn't have kept the truth from you; you're right."

Liz rubbed at her eyes again, and she could feel the raised scarring of her palm and wrist on her cheek as she did. The question that was always there, in the back of her mind, bubbled to the surface once more.

"Red, what is this, this thing between us?" When she noticed how still he became, she continued, in a voice that she tried to keep firm, but she could hear how how brittle around it was around the edges. "I don't have a lot to - I only have a little control over my ability, my husband, my whole relationship was a lie, my dad just died...I don't have much."

He was watching her, lips pressed tight, the corner on one side twitching up a little. "You have me."

She did. She knew that. She had Red, like it or not. He was a constant for her before she even knew it. Now, he was…

She tried to imagine if it would be the same if he was alive, if things were different.

But here he was, the man from the photo with Sam and Cooper, barely looking older than he did in that photo. Her constant companion. Her very own Casper of the criminal, sex-oozing variety.

She needed to know why.

Liz pushed herself backwards to rest against the headboard, shifting to sit tailor-style, alert, her eyes trained on him. "Tell me about the photo."

She jerked her head in the direction of the chair in the corner of the room, and after she gave him a permissive nod, Red stepped into the room and the chair moved to face her bed.

She spoke his name three times, and with the room's low-lights, he looked solid, he looked like he was alive.

Red seated himself, crossing his legs and running his hands on the chair arms; she knew he couldn't feel them. It was just a control thing.

He watched her. "You won't believe this."

She shrugged. "I see dead people. Try me."

He sighed, heavily, leaning back, and gave her a look that easily said 'I warned you' before diving into it.

"I was still at the Naval Academy when I got picked to go to DC for a panel. Some young leaders, armed forced, reaching-across-the-branches, kumbaya crap kind of thing. I met Cooper there, we realized that we both had similar secrets, and _he_ knew of others with similar secrets. People who could see the dead, could read minds, could move things...we were closet comic book nerds and suddenly it seemed like we could actually _be_ the X-Men.

"We convinced the right people for the funding, with the assistance of a young man who could influence people's decisions. We set up the Morgue and suddenly, we," he shook his head and laughed, as if he barely believed it to be true himself. "We were a clandestine department and we had staff and only half a clue as to what we were doing, but we were thrilled."

The photo came out of the suitcase, floated to land on the comforter between them. Seeing her Dad's face made her eyes blur a little, made them sting.

"How does...how did Sam come into this?"

Red studied the photo, a sad nostalgia on his face. "He was an early member and...and my best friend. My partner."

Liz tried to think of Sam Scott the magician, the always smiling, always wise-cracking man who raised her, and imagine him, younger and serious in the Morgue, in a business suit; it was difficult, but she knew very well Red couldn't lie to her.

He ran his hand through his hair nervously and continued. "We found out through some of our connections about Yilmaz, this... _thug._ He was leading a burgeoning crime syndicate that was involved in highly specific trafficking; just as we had finally realized what our abilities could do on a larger-scale for the defense of the country, there were those who understood the potential for personal gain.

"Sam and I, we were tasked with going undercover, attempting to take part in one of the auctions that would take place. Our covers were solid enough to gain their trust, and Sam being a telepath, he was able to influence them into allowing us to have a 'preview' before the auction."

Liz could sense his growing anxiety, could see him start to fidget. He tilted his head a little and worked his jaw, and bitter smile twitched on his mouth.

"You were there, you were...younger. Than most of them. Almost all of them."

Her heart pounded in her ears. An auction? Trafficking? Liz's gut twisted with anxiety over the direction this story was going. Her fingers brushed over her scar, and he noticed the motion, halting the tale.

A scar that big, that painful, and all she could remember from her earliest memory was darkness, and her own screaming. The same as her nightmares.

Her fingers traced the branches of the scar down to where they met and joined.

She couldn't remember the last time she ate. That was good. She'd probably have thrown up if there was anything in her gut.

She almost didn't want to ask the question on the tip of her tongue. "I didn't get this in a fire, did I?"

The head shake she received in response was very subtle, but it was enough. She swallowed, throat dry, and covered the raised and mottled skin with her other shaking hand. She didn't want to see it. She didn't want him to see it.

Tears stung her eyes again, but for a very different reason.

"That's sick. That's disgusting" she spat in a hushed whisper, wiping at her nose and cheeks. "Branded like cattle."

Red waited a moment, allowing her the time to say any of the multitude of things she was thinking, but she couldn't get them out. "We thought the same thing," he assured her. "And seeing you there in that place it was," he stopped, and shook his head, closing his eyes. "We knew we had to act, and quickly."

"We left and got ready to come back with the strike team. We came back and found the building up in flames - they must have had a psychic of their own, or a telepath...even now, I don't know. Neither does Cooper - I've seen his files."

Liz dropped her head back on the wall behind her and inhaled sharply through her nose. "You saved me from the fire."

Without moving, she watched him from that strange angle, through lowered eyelashes. Watched him battle with how to react to her statement: truth or another conversation topic, some quick brush off with bravado.

"You died saving me."

His silence and stillness made her sit up properly. Her heart pounded furiously.

"You died saving me," she slowly repeated.

He dipped his head, lips pressed firmly together, somber and sad.

The silence was going to suffocate or shatter her and she wasn't sure which one it would be.

"Please say something," she begged. "Even if it's ridiculous or some story about a woman who sells hats in Guam and makes some pastry I can't pronounce and how it's the bes-"

"-You were the first kid I found," he said, voice gruff. "You were...I guess you were still awake when they set the fire. The bastards had run. You crawled and hid but when I ran in, I found you first. I grabbed you. Got you out."

She remembered that, she remembered hiding and the smoke and the screams. She had always remembered those screams. She thought they were her own but there so many in her nightmares and -

She remembered hiding and the smoke and the screams and her back against the leg of the chair. The smoke in her lungs and soft familiar comfort of her stuffed bunny against her cheek.

She remembered being pulled out and lifted, and the feeling of the cold night air in her lungs and Sam cradling her.

Red continued. "I tried. I went back in but there was just too much smoke and I couldn't find my way back out and I…"

He shut his eyes tightly. "I'd promised you I'd come back."

Liz remembered the feeling of his finger linked with hers, the curve in reverse and enlarged.

Raymond Reddington was haunting her because of a fucking _pinky swear_ when she was a child _._


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dinner and a bank heist - what more could you want?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to have this finished before I left for my race, but that sadly didn't happen. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> Still don't own a damn thing.

**A** fter Liz's realization in the hotel room, she'd been plagued with a strange sort of guilt. She'd asked for some space, to process what he'd told her about the fire, and he'd respected the request. The two times he'd given her a new case, he'd been professional, but he always ended their meetings by asking if she wanted to talk, and she'd declined.

The distance served a second purpose: she'd spent time trying to recall more of that night and the fire. Flames had always been in her nightmares, and had caused her to shy away from trying to remember more about that night.

But now she knew more. She'd been coming to terms with her scar all over again, but as far as Red went…

For God's sake, he'd tried to cross over more than once and couldn't and it was probably because of her.

She'd been a child. A scared, small child, fearful of losing the person she'd instantly decided was a protector, someone who'd made her safe. One tiny decision on her part that night had led to where they were now.

But a child's pinky swear couldn't be the reason for Red being at her beck and call, for this connection between them, the reason why they know what the other was thinking, feeling…

(That didn't lessen with space. It took her a four days to realize the lonely melancholy she was moving around in wasn't just her own, but his as well.)

A few weeks had passed this way. They sucked.

At their most recent meetup to discuss a new target, she'd made a point of thanking him, and he'd been taken aback by it, but had recovered and thanked her for not sending him away.

She'd been working her way through the stack of reports that needed to be filed - secret paranormal branches of the FBI still loved their paperwork apparently- when a text from Dembe buzzed on her phone's screen, displaying nothing but the ghost emoji.

Liz's fingers had come to a hovering halt over the computer keyboard as she looked at it, trying to decipher what was wrong for a half second before the next text came through.

_This is Red, by the way._

She started to type out the question, but he was already answering it.

_Stylus pen._

She hadn't been able to stop the sharp laugh or the smile that had spread across her face at that; Ressler cast a questioning look in her direction, but she waved off his curiosity.

The next day, they met up at a park bench in DC for their usual business, following the same protocol they always did. When he asked if she wanted to talk, she did. She honestly wanted to talk, and when she said 'yes', they both seemed surprised by her quick answer.

He'd barely paused before answering, but she knew him well enough to see that delay. At some point, he'd asked her if they could talk over dinner, and at her apartment, and honestly, it was better than sitting in some ridiculously high class restaurant seemingly talking to herself.

When Liz unlocked the door to her apartment that night, she immediately smelled garlic and onion and felt her mouth start to water. Then she noticed what was loudly playing in the kitchen.

"Really? Harry Belafonte?" she asked loudly as she leaned down to greet Hudson, who was happy for the physical attention. Clearly, he'd stopped seeing Red as an intruder but was feeling neglected for however long Red had been in her apartment. Guess that meant Dembe wasn't there.

She followed the sound and the smells to the kitchen and froze, staring at the scene before her. There was a pot stirring itself on the stove, a strainer was just above the lip of the sink, water dropping from the noodles within it. Red was over at the counter. There was a lot of hip movement going on from side to side that she imagined constituted his take on dancing while he busied himself with the meat tenderizer and a pair of chicken breasts. He was obviously trying to make it appear as if he was holding the handle of the tool, but when he looked up to greet her, his 'grip' missed for a half second. Recovering, he went back to work.

"I grew up with _Jump Up Calypso_ on heavy rotation in my house. My mother was _obsessed_ with those albums. Oh don't look at me like that, they're fun...in a campy way." After a split second, his joviality faltered and he looked at Liz with real concern. "What is it? What's wrong?"

Really, what _wasn't_?

In her kitchen, playing music, cooking for her...Red was one of the few things that made sense, somehow, in her chaotic life.

Liz opened her mouth to answer him, found it dry, and swallowed. She shook her head.

"Nothing, it's...it's just...it's nice. This is nice. Thank you."

He watched her for a moment, and then nodded with a small smile.

She stuffed her hands in her pockets and looked around the kitchen. "This smells amazing," she praised, while rocking back on her heels. "What can I do?"

"You can have that glass of wine," he told her, jerking his head in the direction of the floating bottle pouring its content into a glass. It looked like a pricey bottle to boot. And since Red certainly wasn't going to be enjoying it, she might as well not let it go to waste.

The dinner was incredible, the wine was excellent. He'd made extra and packed it away in her fridge for another day, but promised to take some to Dembe as well. The conversation was light while she ate, and he made what could have been an awkward situation - who liked eating in front of someone who wasn't? - mostly easy.

But finally, her own self consciousness had her dropping her fork. "Okay, I can finish this later. It's not right, eating it in front of you. You spent all of that time and can't-"

"-Please, Lizzie," he scoffed and leaned farther back in the seat on the other side of her tiny dining room table. "I've had a decade or two to get used to this, it's fine. I'm just glad you enjoy it; it's not like I can taste test as I'm going along."

Her responding silence was a beat too long, her own murky emotions prickling too strongly with guilt for him not to pick up on it, and he frowned. She shook her head at his reactive concern, but continued to watch him, like some unsolvable puzzle, while chewing on her lip.

"Do you resent it, what I did?" she asked finally, when it was obvious their silent conversation wasn't enough. "That night, in the fire, I made you promise-"

His eyebrows rose instantly, disappearing into shaggy blond hair. "You were a child! You didn't mean-"

"-Intentional or not, you're stuck here because of me," she said, resolutely. "Red, it's okay. You can tell me the truth."

His mouth opened for a split second, and she could feel the quick burn of some sort of indignation on his part.

"You want the truth? Fine," he said sharply, and she could see he was holding his jaw just so, teeth jutting forward. "When I first realized what had happened, I was angry. Furious. And then I realized I wasn't going anywhere, and staying angr is a ridiculous waste of time, even for a dead guy. And with everything else going on, with every time I found myself near you, I...I learned about you, who you were. I can't resent you, Liz. I never could."

Liz felt her mouth go dry as a warmth spread in her chest, the impression of whatever he was feeling blending with hers. He was suddenly very focused on making the salt and pepper shakers slide back and forth on the table.

She pressed her lips together and felt the corner of her lip pull upward. She ducked her head and went back to cutting up her food.

"Could have used more garlic," she told him with great severity when the silence in the room seemed to be too much.

Red rolled with it, scoffing. "You didn't even have _real_ garlic in this house before today. And I've seen you eat pizza; the amount of powdered garlic you put on your's is _criminal_."

Liz rolled her eyes. But continued to take another bite.

"Just a piece of constructive criticism," she responded after swallowing, then looked back down to her plate, "for next time."

She didn't need to look up to know he was smiling.

After that work was a little less off-kilter, but it was definitely different. Liz found herself laughing more, enjoying the time she spent there. Red and Dembe became frequent guests at her apartment.

She was standing in a dressing room trying on a short sleeved top for the first time in her adult life when she realized she couldn't remember the last time she'd brushed worrying fingers over her scar, or given it much thought.

As far as the typical day-to-day life threatening situations go, the bank holdup that she, Meera, Aram, and Ressler ended up in was of the normal variety.

There was a lot of bravado on the part of the three men holding them up - the ghost that had been the ringleader of the job was quickly dispatched with one of Aram's new EMF detainment bombs, and now they were directionless, scared, and armed - but Meera had whispered to the team that they were lying about being willing to shoot anyone who tried to make a move, or at least the man who'd threatened their hostages was lying.

Liz and Ressler had avoided eye contact with the ghost before he was contained for questioning later, and Red had caused a commotion on the other side of the bank lobby while Aram had rolled the EMF bomb. Their kidnappers still hadn't checked anyone for weapons, luckily.

"This is what we get for trying to go out for lunch," Meera groaned to her coworkers as they huddled against a wall.

Liz's ATM card was slid in her bra from the earlier, interrupted attempt to withdraw cash, and a hard plastic corner was pressing uncomfortably into the side of her breast. She fidgeted.

"It's not like we can have Dominos deliver to the Morgue," Aram whispered back fiercely.

"I even _told_ you all that deli was cash only before you left," berated Red, squatting beside them.

Liz had said his name three times the second she'd realized two of the men holding up the bank were mediums. Now, it meant she was the only one who could see him, but he sure as hell was heard by the others in the group. They glared in the vague direction they heard the voice.

Liz wished she could reach out and smack him.

"Okay, bickering time is done," Ressler informed them. "Action time."

Red snorted. "Ressler in action? Someone check for banana peels first."

Liz glared, knowing he'd get the message loud and clear.

And naturally, their attempt to get a handle on the situation went pear-shaped. In the flurry of activity as they tried to disarm the men, Liz found herself facing the barrel of one of their guns.

"Lizzie!" barked Red.

The force of a body side checking her knocked the wind out of her for a second when she fell to the floor.

Her ears were ringing from the gunfire, and her arm stung from the impact with the floor. There was still an arm around her waist and as she rolled onto her back with a groan, she brushed against the person who had saved her life - probably Ressler. He probably got clipped; his shitty luck should have been classified as a secondary Talent.

"Keen, you good?" Meera called over to her.

When Liz opened her eyes, she saw the CIA agent had her would-be shooter on the floor, and she was pulling handcuffs out.

"Yeah," she grunted, struggling to sit up and turn to check on the man who had knocked her out of the way of the shot. She was going to have to do his paperwork for a week after this, she knew it.

Red, sprawled beside her, was staring at the spot where his arm was still curled around her waist.

And then they were both staring at one another, because they both could feel it.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was stupid. So stupid. All they had to do was just check and see if earlier was a fluke or if this was... this was something new between them, but they both were rooted to their spots.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Own nothing. Drastically behind on answering reviews/comments and I apologize for that.

**O** f course Red would disappear, that bastard. Liz was left to finish up at the scene with her coworkers and head back to the Morgue to give Cooper a full report of what happened so they could determine what their story was going to be for the local authorities about the holdup.

Red was feeling just as anxious as she was. The combination of their joint confusion and an unhealthily strong cup of coffee (the stupid pot was left on at all hours and became lethal, but that was fitting since they worked in a building called the Morgue) had Liz practically vibrating in her desk chair.

Meera frowned and assessed Liz with a maternal worry.

"Are you okay?"

She almost burst out laughing at the question. No, no she wasn't. The ghost she'd pinky-swore into following her around her entire life has just saved her life and she'd felt his touch like he wasn't some kind of sexy Casper and despite miles between them, she was completely aware of the fact that he was freaking out about this as much as she was.

"I'm just a little shaken up from before," Liz said, simply.

Recently, her half-truths were coming easily. At least around people like Cooper and Meera. Around Red? It was another story. She completely understood why he was always so frustrated when trying to lie to her. She knew the feeling now, firsthand: it felt like her throat was closing, like her voice was yanked out of her, her mouth out of her control. It was just easier to tell him the truth than to even attempt to fib.

"You gave your initial report, I'm sure Cooper will let you finish the write up later."

Liz booked it out of the place once she got permission and raced back to her apartment; he'd be there, avoiding her but waiting at the same time.

She smelled dinner as she was fumbling with her key and snorted. Raymond Reddington: Concierge of Crime and Stress Cooker.

The music was loud for a half second, something bright and jazzy and clearly meant to distract him. It was immediately shut off as she was opening the door and the jingle of metal informed her Hudson was coming to greet her at the door.

It smelled of garlic and a little like mushrooms, but delicate.

He hesitated to greet her by just half a second, but she felt his anxiety spike before he spoke.

"How was work today, dear?" he sing-songed from the kitchen, feigned lightness grating instantly on Liz's raw nerves.

"Red." It sounded like a question to her, and must have to him as well; he appeared at the doorway to the kitchen immediately.

She said his name three times, because there was no way she was going to continue the conversation and be able to constantly see that tacky lamp by the doorway through him.

The space of the living room between them felt like a chasm. Liz dropped her keys into the bowl on the little table beside the door and she heard him turn the locks behind her in the loud silence that followed.

He stuffed his hands into his pockets and rocked forward on the balls of his feet, almost awkwardly, as if he'd wanted to continue to move towards her. She certainly felt the pull herself.

"Hello," he said, voice small but pleasant, just as she thought her chest was going to explode. The laugh it triggered came out of her mouth as a small huff of air.

"Hi," she returned, voice a little rough since her throat suddenly felt painfully dry. He swallowed in sympathy and she rushed to speak to keep herself from getting distracted or losing courage and turning around to flee the place. "Where did you learn that trick?"

His answer was a stare. Of course he saw through that shitty attempt to lie.

She answered the question he hadn't voiced, worry and curiosity growing in both of them. "I checked. Walked through Tina from the Mailroom like it was nothing." Suppressing the shudder at the memory of the feeling, cold and heeby-jeeby, was futile.

"Dembe wished he _could_ touch me just so he could punch me for trying."

She gave him a dubious look and laughed. "He did _not_."

"He was _thinking_ it," Red insisted. "I mean I think he was...Not like I could lie to you about that."

She nodded quietly and felt the ease of their conversation start to wobble.

"Thank you," she said sincerely, "for saving my life."

He shook his head, floppy hair moving erratically. "It's...that was nothing. I just...I'm glad it worked."

They were both trapped like deer in headlights, watching one another. It was stupid. So stupid. All they had to do was just check and see if earlier was a fluke or if this was... this was something new between them, but they both were rooted to their spots.

Red cleared his throat and stood a little straighter. "Only one way to find out, I suppose," he said, voicing her thoughts.

"Right." It felt good, giving in to the temptation to move closer to him. He had stuck his hand out in front of him, palm up, and…

Wow, she didn't want it to be a fluke. She wasn't sure what she was going to to if it was some sort of strange, one-off occurrence because of the position of the moon or the breakfast burrito she'd eaten or some obscure religious holiday or ley lines or….

Liz brought her own hand down over his.

He curled his fingers, hooked them with hers for a moment of inelegant squeezing. She could feel the pressure. Feel the texture of his skin. It wasn't warm or cold, but it was definitely _him_. There was a distant sort of hum where they touched, like a low-level current.

Liz realized she was holding her breath. "Can you feel that?" she whispered on a heavy exhale as she tore her eyes from their spot of contact to look up at him. She knew the answer already; his joy was bright and feeding the elation growing in her gut.

He was staring at their hands with something like wonder, and he dipped his head in wordless affirmation as he slid his flat against hers, palm to palm.

"I can," he finally said with a breathless laugh, still solely focused on their hands as Liz knit their fingers together and he stepped closer. "It's...warm. It's-wow," he laughed again and his thumb slid over the knuckle of her pointer finger. "Your skin is really soft."

"I can feel you," he said, and she realized he hadn't meant to say it out loud when he repeated it again, a smile spreading on his lips.

When he looked up at her with glassy eyes, his expression was so open, so vulnerable, Liz's chest felt tight and oh God,it _ached_.

"Can you?" he asked her earnestly.

She nodded, trying to recover. "Yeah. It's...it's pressure and uh," she swallowed and flexed her fingers, watching them to avoid his gaze. "Texture. And this kind of…" she trailed off as she swayed a little closer, her feet following a heartbeat later until they brushed against the tips of his.

"Electricity?" he offered and she hummed, concurring.

And then she looked back at him to see if he felt it as well, and made the mistake of letting her eyes flit to his lips.

She did it all the time, couldn't understand why exactly (she couldn't lie to him but she could and had been lying to herself about it), but it didn't matter what was going on, when he was speaking - arguing with her at work, having a conversation about the latest target from the Blacklist, teaching her about the dish he was cooking, regaling one of his many shady associates with a story while she was dragged along with little preparation - Liz would find herself watching Raymond Reddington's lips at some point.

She'd just...appreciated his lips. They'd looked soft. Looked inviting. Until now, it was fine. It wasn't like there had been anything she could act on.

But now he could feel her and she could feel him.

Slowly, tentatively, she brought her free hand up to his jaw, sliding her thumb along his cheek as she brought her hand to curl around the back of his neck. His eyes slid shut, and he leaned into the touch.

He whispered her name like a prayer.

She couldn't imagine what it was like, to feel something for the first time in two decades, to experience touch and heat and...she wanted it to be perfect for him. Whatever he wanted, she'd allow it, wanted to let him touch or be touched in whatever way he asked for it. She wanted to be that warm woman in the cool set of sheets for him; she was _burning_ as it was.

And she wasn't the only thing burning.

The smoke detector in the kitchen started going off and they both jumped.

Liz started to pull away from him, albeit with reluctance, to check on it but he didn't move. The alarm silenced in the other room, she heard metal clanging and water running as he covered the hand on her neck with his own.

Ghost. Poltergeist-like abilities. Right.

"That uh...that _was_ supposed to be truffle risotto," he informed her apologetically, his irises blown when he opened his eyes as he made no effort to detach himself from her.

She wanted to say 'screw the risotto' but bit her lip to keep from voicing the thought, afraid another distraction would crumble whatever was building between them. His dark eyes dropped to her lips and she didn't allow another second to pass, she closed the space between them.

Her previous observations of his lips were all confirmed. They were soft. They were very kissable. Extremely kissable. They slid against her own and he made a noise in the back of his throat, something between a content sigh and a whine, or maybe it was both of them, she didn't know and couldn't really care. Liz slid a hand into his hair and relished the appreciative groan it resulted in, but pulled back, alarmed.

"Shit," she breathed, watching his face with concern. "Is this too much? You...you're probably really sensitive and... I can-we can-"

"Don't you dare," he warned her, voice so rough she felt it low in her belly and then he had a hand between her shoulders, pulling her against him. "Don't you fucking dare," he said against her lips before he was kissing her again.

The hand between her shoulders slid up into her hair, a thumb stroking the curve of the back of her head for a second before he was pulling her hair clip out. His other hand finally untangled from her's and clawed at her hip and then…

Raymond Reddington was squeezing her ass and she never thought she'd be so happy about it.

His tongue pushed against and traced the seam of her lips and she parted then for him, and when he realized she was giggling into their kiss it was his turn to pull back.

"What?" he asked, eyebrows knit together, and there was a hint of indignance to his voice and she pressed a lingering kiss to the corner of his mouth before answering him.

"It's...that feels weird."

"Bad weird?" he immediately asked.

He stared down at her, trying to discern what she was feeling to answer his question. She realized he'd begun been walking her around the couch at some point simply because he'd stopped now. Liz shook her head.

"Good weird," she assured him, and moved to sit on the couch. "Really good weird."

She pulled him down to sit with her, because she could. Because she could press herself against the side of him as they kissed, could swing her leg over his lap during another, could make a noise of appreciation when he hand made its way up the back of her blouse to stroke at her spine as his lips descended to her throat, could run her own hand under his outdated blazer and skim along the edge of his pants, could pull his shirt out from its stupid tuck-

She pulled again, trying not to distract his exploration beneath her shirt, because his hand had made its way to her side and any second now it was going to brush the edge of her bra and she wasn't trying to rush him along.

Another tug and she gave up subtlety with a frustrated growl and a very forceful yank.

If Red hadn't grabbed at her thighs to keep her in place, she would have fallen off of his lap.

She attacked his shirt to try to unbutton it (more than it already was - she was really looking forward to an unfettered view of what was underneath that underbuttoned shirt and that hint of chest hair that had taunted her for quite some time now) and had no luck with it either.

"What the hell, Red?!" she demanded and he immediately brought his hands up in a defensive gesture.

"You think I'm keeping you from pawing at me? If I could dream, this," he gestured between the two of them frantically, "would be a frequent repeat."

Liz leaned back and pulled one more time at the shirt and then stopped.

She gave an experimental wiggle of her hips.

They both looked down.

"Are you-" Liz started to ask but stopped when he dropped his head against the back of the couch and covered his face with his hands to muffle his frustrated groan.

"No," he told her, miserably, and then brought his head up to give her a serious look, punctuating his next declaration by lifting his hips. "And _trust me_ , you would know if I was." He covered his face again.

Liz played with the collar of his shirt and tried to think of the best way to phrase her next question, since she was aware of how he was feeling already.

"Have you _ever_ been ab-"

"Not since I croaked."

Well it wasn't _her_ then.

"Okay," she said, thinking, processing the situation. She ran her hands through her hair. "Okay," she repeated, a little more confident, slapping her hands against her thighs.

"Let's...let's focus on the positive here: Before today, we couldn't even do this," she paused to grab at his hands. She knotted their fingers together and brought their joined hands up between them.

"Or this." Liz leaned forward to drop a kiss onto his mouth. When she went to pull away, he sat upright, chasing her lips for another kiss.

It deepened. Red combed his fingers through her hair and pulled her to press against his chest. She could feel her heart, feel it beat wildly.

Touching him felt _right_. Felt comfortable. Felt like she'd been meant to touch him her entire life.

She detached herself to sit beside him when she needed to breathe and gave his thigh a comforting squeeze. "We might not be limited to over the clothes forever."

"That determination there? Totally a turn on." He winced at his own words. "Damn it."

"Hey, maybe there's a ghost version of Cialis or something."

The throw pillow sailed across the room from the chair and smacked her in the face.

"So far, everything I've wanted has happened, eventually," he said with mock-sincerity after a moment of consideration as she tossed the pillow away from her. "I just have to be serious about this too. This is about..belief. Just got to believe in us. Racked up a lot of firsts that way so far, I think."

Liz snorted. "You're next goal is first ghost with a boner?"

"A booner."

Liz scrunched her nose up at that. "Oh God Red, _no_ ," she groaned and started to push off the couch. "That was too much, I'm sorry that was-"

Red yanked her back down to sit across his lap, and kissed her soundly. "Joking aside, I…" he swallowed and brought a hand up to cradle the side of her face. "Even if this never changes, or if this goes away, this is...I'd be happy with this. If you are."

"You have to know I am."

"Well after Nina Simone, _yeah_."

Liz smacked his arm and he yelped.

"Hey!"

"Remember, I can do that now," she warned him, and he rubbed his arm dramatically for a second before resting his arm across her knees again. He smiled and stroked her flesh.

His ministrations slowed after a moment.

"And I can touch you."

She liked the weight of his hand on her thigh. She liked it even more as it slowly moved up her leg. She knew what he was thinking.

"It would be pretty one-sided," Liz reminded him, trapping the hand on her thigh.

His voice was low and gravelly when he finally answered her. "You know I'm not that altruistic, Lizzie. I derive pleasure from seeing you enjoy things - food and clothes and...everything I can offer you, anything. Whatever you want."

That was a lot to handle. She'd have to consider his words later, when she could think more clearly.

She tried to keep her voice calm as she slowly slid off his lap and stood on shaky legs, offering him her hand. "I want you,." It felt like the most honest thing she'd ever said in her life, so she repeated it again. "I want you, Raymond Reddington."

They'd come so far since that first day with him in the Box and her so unaware of this world, of him, of what they could have.

He followed her, a shadow she could feel brushing against her back as they made their way into her bedroom.

"You have me," he promised her.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Don't own the Blacklist characters, but the Morgue and its working are my baby. :)

**L** iz fell backwards onto the pillows in a trembling, laughing mess and tried to cover her grin with fluttering hands as she struggled to catch her breath.

"Hey, let me see that," Red playfully chided, pulling her hands away from her face and kissing the upturned corner of her mouth. "I worked hard to put that there."

"Shit," she breathed. "I lost count."

Raymond chuckled. "I didn't - at this rate we'll be breaking our previous record...and I haven't even _touched_ the contents of your bedside dresser drawer."

Liz groaned, stared at him and took a moment to appreciate the situation and give a small disbelieving shake of her head.

"Good weird or bad weird?" he asked, aware of her thoughts.

" _Really_ good weird," she answered. "And you knew that."

Liz watched him watch her, her laughter fading into the warm glow of contentment in her chest, and she wondered if he could feel the same thing.

Red dropped a kiss to her sternum as a response, watching her with hungry, heavy-lidded eyes as he pressed another lingering one in the same spot.

How, with the satisfied buzz coursing through her body to the point of near-numbness, she could suddenly feel a new pang of desire for him and his touch, was beyond her understanding.

She didn't think she would ever grow tired of this.

She threaded her fingers through his thick blond hair and let out a shuddering, happy sigh as he kissed the valley between her breasts, started to crawl his way back down and-

Her stomach growled.

She wondered if there was a way to bottle the feel of his laughter against her skin; she'd make millions.

"I think we need to replace some of those calories you've burned," he declared, and was instantly gone, leaving Liz to catch her breath and pull strands of sweaty hair out of her face alone in her bedroom.

The last three weeks had been indescribable. In private, Raymond Reddington was attentive and passionate, and Liz couldn't remember the last time she'd smiled so much. Anger over situations at work - like how it seemed their targets were always going specifically after her if cornered - were small bumps in her otherwise smooth and happy sailing.

The effort to _not_ smile at the Morgue was becoming more and more difficult as time went by and Red become even more of a constant in her personal life. Granted, their arguments were even louder and more fiery than ever, but most people were chalking it up to Liz's eroding patience for the ghost, had made comments along this line to her, telling her to stay strong.

If only they knew the truth.

On second thought, it was better they didn't.

In her months at the Morgue, she'd never heard of anyone having the any kind of 'interactions' with a ghost like the ones she'd been enjoying recently. Hell, outside of the Morgue and the EM pumps they had rigged the building with, many of her coworkers couldn't even see the dead.

On top of everything else, Red was a _criminal_ , an informant for the FBI. If he was a living, breathing man, she couldn't envision his current arrangement - freedom to continue his illicit business while selectively giving them tips when he determined it was beneficial - would ever have been allowed.

He never told anyone everything; for as much as she'd begun to spend more time with him, and therefore was exposed to more of his dealings and business partners, there was a lot she didn't know. From her conversations with Dembe, it seemed the medium wasn't fully aware of everything either.

She was getting tired of being left in the dark. Part of her wished she could figure out what _this_ was between them, because she had the distinct impression it was influencing just how accepting she'd been up until now of the situation.

And yet…

Liz had, from time to time recently, tried to take a step back and observe him like he was any of her subjects from beforehand. Profile him, as unbiased as possible.

She was on to something.

The audible protest of her empty stomach had her pushing herself up to sit on the edge of her bed to rise and shuffle into her kitchen, wrapping her robe around her as she went.

As she got closer, she could hear him humming to himself, and it took her a second to place the song, filling in the words in her mind.

_Good times for a change. See the luck I've had could make a good man turn bad._

Fitting, she thought to herself.

"I smell waffles," she announced as she came around the corner. Breakfast for dinner was a fantastic idea that she never typically put into action.

Red looked up from the waffle iron (the newest of his purchases to grace her kitchen - at this rate, it was going to start looking like the Sur La Table catalog in there) and gave her an affirmative smile, and she couldn't stifle her laughter. His usual impeccable appearance was marred by his wild hair.

"Wow," she commented, moving to stand beside him and gesturing at the top of his head. "Come here."

A spatula in one hand, plate with waffles covered in powdered sugar in the other, the man dipped his face forward, and Liz smoothed his erratic hair into something that at least appeared to be tame.

Liz rocked backwards a little, and he straightened back up. "Can't get your clothes off, but I can mess up your hair."

He shot her a look filled with feigned worry as he walked over to her table with the plate. "Is that going to become a thing with you?"

She rolled her eyes and crossed the space to drop onto her chair, fork and knife already in hand before she was fully seated. Liz bit into a bite of waffle with a noise of pleasure she did little to hide, before continuing, mouth not entirely empty of food. "Coming from the guy who spends most of his time running his own hands through it, that's hilarious. If you weren't a ghost, you might have to worry about bald spots."

He rolled his eyes. "Eat your waffles."

Antagonistically, she skewered a strawberry instead. "Keep this cooking up and it's going to be hard to chase after perps."

He snorted, but didn't look up from his copy of the Wall Street Journal, now scheduled for delivery to her home (after he asked her). "You were surviving on fast food and frozen meals, Liz. _You_ complained about it and I offered a solution, which you accepted. I'm just here to do your bidding."

He immediately looked up, aware of the prickle of displeasure she had felt a flash of, just a fraction of a second after she felt it. "Kind of the other way around, don't you think?" she asked him, keeping her voice even.

The newspaper was lowered. "It bothers you," he stated, because there was no way it was a question, not when they were so aware of the other's thoughts and emotions.

It looked like they were having this conversation a hell of lot sooner than she expected they would be.

Liz put her fork down. "Of course it does. You _know_ it does." She sat back in her chair and watched him as she finished chewing the bite in her mouth. "If I was a TV character, I'd fit into that 'has issues with authority' category. And I hate having the truth kept from me...sure, you can't lie to me, but you can _not_ tell me things. And you don't...which drives me crazy.

"So just…" Liz trailed off, feeling some of her courage falter, because she was suddenly very aware of what _wasn't_ her problem with the situation and it was an almost dizzying moment of self actualization. She didn't take issue with whatRed did, but how he kept her from knowing the full truth of it. It was a scary understanding for someone who worked for the FBI.

Liz slid her eyes to her plate, busied herself dragging a waffle piece through syrup. "Just keep me in the loop, and you might be surprised what I do."

"For someone who doesn't like being left out of things, that's awfully vague."

She shrugged. "Magician's kid. I'm used to keeping stuff up my sleeve."

"I guess you even telling me there's something up there that's a sign of trust."

She hummed an affirmative sound while chewing, and picked at her plate, making a design with the tine of her fork in the powdered sugar. "Plus there's that whole 'you've really become the Supernatural Concierge of Paranormal Crime so you can eventually give your intel back to Cooper at the team you started' thing…" she casually stated, aware it was a bit of a risk to throw out there, but the time seemed right.

There was a loud ceramic clatter on counter behind Red. She didn't take her eyes off of him though, knowing better than to do so; she would have missed the quick flash of astonishment as it appeared on his face, just as rapidly smothered away behind false calm as he sprang up from his chair and started making her cup of tea, his back to her.

"That's-you-" he struggled to keep up the act of 'holding' the spoon as he added sugar and attempted to talk around the truth, and laughed darkly. "I told you I was making death interesting for myself."

Liz pushed up from the table, and came over to the counter, covering the mug and the spoon with her hand, halting his actions. His nervousness churned in her own gut and she looked up at him, gaze steady, confident.

He had died young and fairly idealistic. He'd died saving a little girl's life - he and Cooper were inspired by fictional, larger-than-life heroes when they began the Morgue. He died without leaving a definite impact on the world, and everything between them aside, he wanted a legacy, something to be remembered by incase he was ever _gone_ gone. He might have been a flip asshole and enjoying the play acting, but there was more to it.

"You think that highly of me?" She'd never heard his voice so small before.

"Red, I've read your background, and I know you - probably better than anyone else." He gave her a validating nod as she continued. "You're like...Bruce Wayne undercover. As a ghost." She rolled her eyes at his dubious expression. "Okay I might be a little off...I'm trying here."

He feigned consideration of the comparison for a moment with a thoughtful hum. "A dead Matches Malone. I can work with that description."

Liz shook her head with a laugh, stealing the opportunity to wind her arms around his waist and to kiss his shoulder. She'd never been so affectionate with Tom, never felt compelled to be that caring with him.

Red shifted, wrapping her in his arms with a faint smile; touch, no matter how much they explored it, was still a novelty. Sometimes it scared her how much she _needed_ it. Liz exhaled and dropped her head to his chest.

"Are we good? Anything else we need to talk about?"

She shook her head and leaned back to look at him. "Not on my end. I think we covered the big topics...at least for now. You?"

He shrugged. "Adequately covered several of my fears in about fifteen minutes over waffles. I'd say it's a good evening...or morning. Shit."

She glanced at the clock on the microwave and echoed his wincing sentiment and scrambled to clear her spot, but the dishes moved off the table on their own.

"There's no point in keeping you up all night if we don't get to tell anyone why you're exhausted in the morning," he complained as he set the dishes to being scrubbed in the sink. "Go get a little sleep."

Liz tried to stifle a yawn with little success and turned from the kitchen to retrace her steps to her bedroom.

"Hey," he said softly, suddenly behind her.

She turned and like a magnet, moved in to accept the kiss he wanted to give her.

His hands framed her face as they separated, and she felt affection ebb into her as he took in he features in his careful grasp.

"I-" he began, then seemed to reconsider it. "Thank you," he quietly whispered.

Liz felt her heart speed up, because yes, it was there, right there, on the tip of her tongue, too.

"Welcome," she replied, swallowing the lump in her throat. Another kiss, this time firm and quick and reassuring, and she continued on her way to bed.

Falling into her mussed sheets, she burrowed into them for a little shut eye before her alarm inevitably went off. The sluice of suds and tap water was quiet, but she heard them and knew Red was washing everything manually because her beast of a dishwasher made ungodly noises.

If only her coworkers knew what the scary Raymond Reddington was like in private.

When her phone chirped, she felt as if no time had passed since she had closed her eyes. She was almost right - it was only 45 minutes later and her apartment was silent. Red was sitting up in the bed beside her, reading a book on her kindle and using a stylus to flip the pages. He glowed just as faintly as the screen in her dark bedroom, and she could see his frown as she reached for the phone; not her alarm then, but a phone call.

Meera's name was on the screen.

"Keen," she greeted, voice unfortunately rougher than she wanted it to be.

"Liz? It's Meera," the other woman greeted, and Liz was awake and sitting up at her coworker's tired, unhappy tone. "I hate to do this, but…"

She looked over to Red, but he was watching her for some clue as to what was going on.

Meera sighed heavily. "It's Tom. He say's he'll only speak to you - now where have we heard _that_ one before?"


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! In the end, this chapter was 20 pages long, so I tweaked and cut it into 2 parts. I'll be posting the next chapter tomorrow - it just needs a little editing.

****Reminder, if you are reading this anywhere other thanfanfiction.netorarchiveofourown.org, or have had to pay for access to this story, you are reading a stolen copy of this work. Please notify me at hasfar2gofics@gmail.com.** **

* * *

  **L** iz knew Red could hear that; he was giving her a blank, innocent look but he was overselling it and she shook her head in judgement.

"I've been switching up when I come in to question him and I know this is a horrible time, but there's a whole lot more to this than I want to talk about on the phone. Cooper's on his way in as well. Ressler just got in. How quickly can you get here?"

She was out of bed, reaching for her pre-ironed clothes for the day. "Give me twenty," she said before hanging up and moving towards the bathroom. There was no use hiding her anxiety as she put herself together for work - she tried to make sure she was presentable, that the circles under her eyes weren't too noticeable to allow Tom to know how much he'd interrupted her night, but she also didn't want to leave any possible idea in his mind that she was trying to dress for him. She stared at her makeup on the counter until Red appeared in the mirror, leaning against the doorway with arms folded.

"Hey," he said, gaining her attention in the reflection. "Do you want me there?"

Her immediate answer was naturally 'yes', but she hesitated, before finally answering. "No," she said, pulling her hair up into a bun. "I don't want you anywhere near him. _I_ don't want to be anywhere near him. Meera's spooked, and she doesn't spook."

Suddenly, the ghost was directly behind her, and pressing a kiss to her exposed neck, lingering and firm. "Then don't go."

She huffed, and couldn't help the smirk. "I think you set the precedent when it comes to the Morgue giving into the requests from criminals in our custody to speak to me. Blame yourself for that." She turned around, going to plant a kiss on the corner of his mouth; he deftly moved his head to intercept and capture it against his lips. What started as an intended brief 'goodbye' peck deepened, and Liz pulled back reluctantly, humming as her captured lower lip between his teeth was finally freed.

"Think of it this way: if we both take care of business in the next few hours, we have the _whole_ day to ourselves." Liz gave him a pointed look. "The whole day."

Red lit up, as much as a faintly luminescent specter could. "Does that mean what I think it means? You'd...you'd really-"

"-If it's what you want," she assured him. "I know how much you want it."

He darted forward and gave her another quick, closed mouth kiss, happiness and appreciation evident. "Dembe threatened to exorcise me last time I watched 'Ghost Adventures' with him. Said I never shut up."

"And despite his warnings, I'm willing to marathon the show you love to hate."

"Wow. _Wow_." He repeated and then grinned, impish, and trailed after her back into the bedroom. "You must really like me, Elizabeth Keen."

"If anyone asks me, I'll deny it," Liz laughed as she grabbed up her purse on the way out of their room, feeling lighter and more relaxed for what was about to take place.

Of course, by the time she parked in the garage at the Morgue, her nerves were back and she felt fidgety and prone to startling. She met Meera outside of the interrogation rooms so she could be briefed.

"So today has been enlightening," huffed the other woman, crossing her arms. "Apparently, there are people with more than one ability."

"Let me guess," Liz said with little emotion and jerked her thumb in the direction of the interrogation room. "He's your first confirmed example."

"The bastard can influence people via touch."

"And yet, I still had to fake it."

Meera snickered. "Joking aside, I don't know how you managed to ward off his attempts, because the guy is _good_. We sedated him but he's still holding out. I can't get him to admit to a damn thing."

"Other than a request for me."

The older woman's expression sobered. "I'm sorry about this."

"No no, if we allowed one prisoner the request, I guess we have to allow them all." Liz moved over to the one-way mirror and looked at the bearded, haggard man sluggishly blinking and slumped over and considering his shackled hands on the metal table's surface. Absently, she noted they hadn't even allowed him shoes, just cotton socks, the bottoms greyed from use. "So he can only influence people through touch?"

Meera nodded. "From what we can tell so far. He convinced a guard to let him go - only got as far as the elevator before we locked it down, but he killed the man before we got the door back open and we had to grab him by the one leg we could see hanging out of the ceiling panel."

"So he sees dead people, can make people believe anything he wants, was trained to infiltrate my life, has a body count and is probably going to try to attack me and escape? Does that cover everything?"

"His vision is 20/20 and the glasses were just part of his disguise."

Liz gave her a smile, but it was a little too manic and resembled a grimace. "Fantastic."

After a quick prep from Cooper, Liz set her shoulders and entered the glaringly bright white room.

He was immediately aware of her careful attempt to remain far away from him, and he made every effort possible to draw her closer to him - pity for her poor suffering husband first, and then tactics changed.

He told her she was wasting her time at the Morgue, that he knew people who could help her, make her even better at what she could do. Just to screw with her, he tried to imply she knew what he was talking about. She did not miss the moment where his eyes flickered down to her scarred wrist, and she tucked the observation away for later consideration.

"Lizzie, they sent me to you for a _reason_ \- don't you believe in fate?"

She was starting to, after everything that had been happening with Red, but she wouldn't for an instant believe that she was _supposed_ to run off with Tom. She played innocent and curious, and for her feigned interest, was rewarded with nothing but more attempts to lure her away. This went on for some time, but when it became very aware he wasn't going to give her any extra information, she looked at him blankly.

He wasn't expecting it, and he glared her down, silently fuming.

"Tom, you have to realize you're not going to be able to get out of this place alive, right? Even if you were able to convince me to get you out of here, it's not happening. And whatever they promised you, trust me, you won't be able to enjoy it like you think you will."

"At this point? I'm just trying to deliver on my promise," he snapped. "Two goddamn years with nothing to show for it.

"Two fucking years of attempting to get you to come with me, gain your loyalty, your trust, and there was always an interruption. Every time! He's a thorough asshole, isn't he?" He throws his hands out to the side, as far as the handcuffs allow him. "The dog barking or the tv turning on by itself. There was always _something_. Every time I tried it didn't seem to work - he fucked it up, I don't know how but he fucked it up. Wanted you for himself."

Liz tried to keep her composure, even though she knew exactly who he was talking about. What did he know about Reddington before he made his presence known? "Who are you talking about?"

" _REDDINGTON, WHO ELSE?_ " he thundered. For a tiny fraction of a second, her face must have betrayed her fear, because he latched onto it. "You certainly weren't as surprised to see him that night as you should have been," he noted, voice now eerily calm. "You were more annoyed than shocked to find him in the bathroom...how long have you been aware of his presence? Liz, I can't tell you enough, he's no good. How long have you you-"

"-I'm the one askin-"

But in the next second, Tom had grabbed hold of the edges of the table and jerked it forward, hitting Liz in her ribs and knocking the air out of her. To keep herself from falling, and to keep him from doing anything else with the table, she slapped her hand down onto it.

When she made eye contact with the man who had been her husband, she saw nothing but cold, hard intent in his eyes. He was going to get himself killed.

He would hurt her until they opened that door and he could get a hold of someone else he could control.

The icy fear that had started in her gut turned to something red hot and angry and then in the next instant, she felt that heat spreading rapidly through her arm and down into her fingers, burned the tips of her fingers and her palms against the metal surface.

On the other end of the table, Tom started to convulse. Liz was frozen in fear as she watched his eyes roll backward and he made strange guttural noises. The lights above flickered and she stared on in horror, paralysed at first, but flew out of her chair and retracted her hand from the table when she saw the metal around his wrists was starting to smoke. Immediately, his body slumped forward and his head hit the table with an echoing clanging thump.

The whole thing was over in a matter of seconds.

It didn't take a large leap of logic for her to realize what had happened. She'd done that. Oh god, she'd _killed_ someone and what the hell was this what had she done how had she -

Her panic must have been so great that Red had noticed it, because just as the door opened and Meera came rushing in, he was there. He barely glanced at Tom's body before turning to her, alarmed.

"Are you alright?" he asked, voice high and when she didn't answer, too preoccupied staring at Meera as she unsuccessfully checked Tom for a pulse, he grabbed at her shoulders to get her attention.

Cooper and Ressler were running down the hallway towards them and two of their SWAT guys shadowed them, one already holding an exorcism grenade in his hand.

The lights overhead flickered and Liz panicked, not wanting a repeat of before. "Meera, you need to get out of this room."

The petite woman gave no argument as she backed away from the body and her coworker, who was taking retreating steps into the corner of the room, distancing herself from metal objects.

The temperature dropped and when she looked to Red before her, still intent on trying to calm her down, she knew it wasn't his doing.

"Lizzie, what's-"

The hairs on her arms started to rise and the room shook so hard the mirror rattled. Her stomach plunged with the feeling of something absolutely _wrong_ about to take place. Cooper held an arm out, blocking the other team members from entering into the small space.

Before today, Liz had never seen the initial materialization of a ghost before; members of the Morgue had told her how terrifying it was, but here she was a few feet from such an occurrence.

Tom was flickering into existence, standing just to the side of his own body.

He focused on Liz in the corner.

Before she could even react to the ghost now rushing towards her, the grenade flew out of the guard's hand and she heard the small notification beep just before it went off.

The force of the energy pulse in the confined space was so strung she hit the wall behind her, her skull hitting the hard surface, and the last thing she remembered was the sound of her own voice screaming.

_Flames. Heat pressing at her chest making it hard to breathe. Her singed, stuffed rabbit in hand. And then a hospital bed. There was a large man in sweats sitting at the end of her bed, watching the TV, and another by the door. The dim twilight on a harbor was visible out the window._

Liz woke up with the sudden feeling of loss, like there was a hole in her gut, and she realized couldn't sense Red.

Her eyelids opened. The cement room was bright and bare, and she immediately closed her eyes against the harsh light as she continued to wake.

Her head and body were slow to communicate with her, and her brain felt like it had roving marbles in it, perpetually rolling around. Drugged? Why would she be drugged?

Her attempt to sit up was weak, and it was how she discovered the restraints. White velcro tethered her wrists to a mattress on a wooden bed frame.

"Elizabeth."

Her titled her head to the side and found her boss sitting next to her bed on a plastic chair.

"Do you remember what happened?" he asked, and the gentleness of his voice irked her.

Liz furrowed her brows and concentrated on what took place, then choked when she tried to suck in air too quickly.

She'd killed Tom. She'd killed him and then that grenade had gone off and-

She couldn't sense Red.

"What happened?" she croaked, trying to steady the racing pace of her heart. "Is Tom…" she trailed off. It wasn't the person she was upset about, it was the fact that she'd done that. She'd killed someone.

"He's dead, and exorcised."

The room was completely bare, save for the bed and the chair. Behind Cooper, the door was closed over. She was in a prison cell.

"You've got me sedated and tied down," she stated, raising her wrists slightly to demonstrate her words. "After I blacked out, did I...did I hurt someone? Anyone else?"

Cooper shook his head. "No. No this was for...this was a precaution." He cleared his throat and seemed to draw himself up a bit in the chair. "Agent Keen, we need to talk."

Liz wiggled her fingers. "Captive audience, sir."

He stifled a small smile at that. "I have a confession to make to you, Elizabeth. I tend to allow people to think I have the ability to determine when someone is lying - the truth is that I'm a telepath."

He waited for that to sink in. It didn't take long for Liz to realize how that could be a problem. Normally, she had a very good poker face, and if Meera, Cooper, or Red weren't involved, she'd be able to lie her way out of a situation, or misdirect.

Today was not one of those days, as she was heavily sedated. "Shit."

He gave her a strained smile. "Before we go any further with this conversation, I want you to know that I've learned to control my ability over the years, and more often than not, I block out the thoughts of others. Everyone is entitled to their privacy, and I like my peace.

"Be that as it may, there are times where I need to listen in on a person's thoughts. Today, you demonstrated an ability we were not aware you possessed prior to its manifestation. I need to ask you a question and you need to answer it truthfully for me: Were you aware you could control or manipulate electricity before today?"

Liz shook her head frantically. "No. No, sir."

She allowed herself to think back to her apartment in New York and its flickering lights, to several of the times she woke up to a dead alarm clock with a fried battery...her mind jumped to a recent situation where she snapped at Red to stop screwing with the lights while she was getting ready for work and she thought he was ignoring her…

Okay, that last one she shouldn't have thought about. Cooper looked decidedly uncomfortable.

She stared at him.

"Before you open your mouth, I need you to realize I can't reprimand someone, in an official capacity, for their thoughts...even if they're memories."

...Even if they were memories of his employees clearly fraternizing with paranormal criminal informants. How would he even begin to explain _that_ one to the Review Board?

"Elizabeth, how long have you known you could...could _physically interact_ with spirits?"

That just sounded plain wrong. She shook her head. Honesty was her best bet right now. "It's not all of them. Just...just him. Only recently."

Cooper and Red went back, way back, but after his decades of criminal activity, she couldn't see him letting this slide.

Later. She'd worry about that later - when she _could_ worry about it without someone who could hear her every thought hovering nearby.

"Any sign of him?" she finally managed to ask, after several swallows to wet her dry throat, already half-knowing the response from Cooper's posture and tone. A futile question, but it felt better to ask it, make him tell her.

"He was very close to that grenade, Elizabeth. He may have been too close."

His words wash over her and Liz closed her eyes, tried to keep her face composed. This was her boss, for Christ's sake, and she already could tell he was displeased with the relationship - he didn't even know the extent of it - that had started right under his nose at the Morgue; she couldn't add dissolving into hysterics to her actions for the day.

Cooper sighed heavily, looked down at the floor for a second before making sympathetic eye contact and talking and Liz was happy they had her sedated because her sudden frustration may have caused a lightbulb to pop. "We started this place together and…" he paused and looked around, beyond the confines of the cinderblock room. "I don't want him to be gone either, Liz; as much of a terror as he is, he was...he was a good friend."

He seemed lost in thought for a moment - Liz wished she could read _his_ mind - and then he stood up, a hand on the foot of her bed with something akin to a paternal smile. "Get some rest; I've got Aram reviewing the tape from the interrogation room for information."

Information about Tom? Red? Her ability? Liz dropped her head back onto the thin pillow and stared at the ceiling, trying to remain calm despite the rising tide of panic in her gut.

"Red," she whispered, half-hoping this was all a joke of some kind. He'd appear and laugh and she'd be angry at him for a good long time but eventually forgive him.

"Raymond," she said, a little louder.

Her chest felt tight, and her eyes felt hot and stung.

"Ray?"

Nothing.

"Reddington Reddington Reddington."

She was strapped down to a bed, drugged, and completely alone. Her boss knew about her relationship with her CI, however unconventional he was, and he was _gone_. She'd killed a man with an ability she hadn't even known she had.

Tears escaped her closed eyes even as she sniffed and tried to keep from breaking down.

She could, barely, still feel _him_ , wherever he was, his panic and desperation a match for her own. Like he was mentally clawing at the barrier between them as well, and it made it even worse. She must have truly been losing it because she could hear his voice, small and distant, in her mind.

He needed out of wherever he was and she wanted him with her; the slow trickle of her thoughts and actions, thanks to the sedatives, made her want to cry out in frustration.

Liz nervously rubbed at her scar, digging her nails into the tender skin and tried to reign in her emotions.

With every part of herself, eyes closed, solely focused on him, on what she felt for him, she reached out, imagining her own hand grasping at his, and had to suck in a deep breath when she felt his hand in her own.

"ReddingtonReddington _Reddington_ ,' she tried again, voice barely heard, and she held her breath.

Nothing happened at first. The room was still, and then there was something like a furious tug at her navel and she didn't let go, held on tight and _pulled_ , felt it in her chest, and in the next second she heard her name breathed out, and she brought her head up and opened her eyes to see he was standing beside the bed.

He stared down at her with wide eyes and his mouth wide open; he looked shaken, absolutely terrified, but he was standing before her.

Liz let out a sob of relief and dropped her head back against the pillow.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And part 2 is here! Sorry for the delay, I've spent about 6 hours at this point restoring my mother's laptop because this is a patient I refuse to give up on and it will LIVE DAMN IT LIVE.

**Reminder, if you are reading this anywhere other than or Archive of Our Own or Fanficton.net, or have had to pay for access to this story, you are reading a stolen copy of this work. Please notify me at hasfar2gofics@gmail.com.  
**

* * *

  **T** he velcro straps suddenly undid themselves and Red was sitting on the edge of the cot, gathering her into his arms, and she struggled to command her limbs to hold onto him, but she finally did, and she burrowed her face into his chest.

His anger was a bright white ebb in her gut. "Why the _hell_ would they-"

Liz cut off his seething, holding him tighter. "Tom," she managed to get out as a reply, and he only held her more tightly. She'd killed someone. She'd killed someone and what if she did it again? Did it to someone like Cooper or Meera or Aram or Ressler?

"We're getting you out of here," he declared, fiercely, and she felt the temperature in the room drop, icy with his anger. She remained in the same position, even as he tried to move to stand.

"No. I don't wanna hurt anyone," she whispered against his neck and fingers tightening in the material of his blazer. "This is...I could hurt someone."

Unbidden, the memory of Tom's face in the interrogation room flashed in her mind, his expression as the shock passed through his body.

"You can't hurt me Lizzie," he said gently. "We can figure this out, whatever this is, but let's just get you home first. Let's go home."

"Ray, I _killed Tom_."

His answer was immediate. "That wasn't your intention," he replied. "He was going to hurt you and you protected yourself, it's that simple." He stood up and offered his hand to her.

When she went to take his hand, she saw her scar, a brand from people she didn't know but they knew her. "They wanted me back. Like I was a piece of...of missing property. They'd sent him to get me back."

"That's never going to happen," he promised, and if her tongue and mind were fully hers, she'd snap at him, tell him he couldn't make promises like that - that wasn't how life worked. Let's go home."

She shook her head back and forth, frustrated with her body's fear-driven and drug assisted paralysis and he set his shoulders like he'd come to a decision.

"Okay. Alright. Budge up." Red moved to sit behind her, leaning against the concrete wall and pulling her back into his arms.

The finish line of her adrenaline rush, her exhaustion, and whatever they had given her had her shivering.

"Did they throw the grenade or was that you?"

There was a sheepish huff of nonexistent breath. "That was me...Not my brightest moment."

"Never again," Liz said simply, firmly and the up-and-down movement of his head brushed against her shoulder and neck, his nervousness humming through her.

"It's not something I want to repeat - _trust me_."

"Where did you go?" she murmured, squeezing his fingers entwined with hers. As much as she hated how vulnerable it made her sound, she had to ask it. Against him, she not only felt his tension, but heard him swallow, his anxiety peaking suddenly.

"I don't want to talk about," he said, voice clipped and tight. "I'm back now. You...you brought me back." He pressed a kiss against her shoulder, curled around her more closely. "You brought me back. Again. I have you and you have me: that's what matters."

Earlier in their relationship, she probably felt guilty about it, but now she knew his feeling on the idea of crossing fully over, and how his own desires had changed. That full and final death left him craven.

"Later?" she asked.

He nodded, and rubbed at her arm, attempting to rid her of her shivers with futile movements.

"Cooper," she exhaled as she turned to rest the side of her head against his shoulder. His name made Red think of the way he'd originally found her restrained, and she tried to mentally distance herself - seeing the image of herself like that was jarring..

"What about him?" The tone was too innocent. Wherever her boss was, he was probably already subject to some of Red's classic instigation. Probably already on his way to this room.

"He uh," she swallowed, tongue still feeling thick and throat dry, "he missed you too." When he didn't respond, she continued while sitting up, trying to make it a little less obvious of just how close their relationship was when the door opened. "Remember that."

"No promises." Reddington huffed a humorless laugh swinging his legs over the edge of the bed to mirror her position, taking up her hand once more; his thumb stroking over her scarred skin, and she felt that same, small little jolt at the contact.

"All this time," the dark-haired woman muttered, shaking her head, "I thought that was you. Thought it was you all the way back to the lights in New York," she laughed.

"To be perfectly honest, I wasn't entirely sure," he replied with a shrug. "It only happened when we were around one another."

Liz leaned against him heavily.

"Are you sure you don't want to go?" he asked her again, quietly.

"Can't risk it."

The door opened only a few minutes later, and revealed Cooper, no worse for wear. There were a few post it notes he'd clearly missed removing from his person, all bearing some truly breathtakingly coarse words, but otherwise, he seemed intact.

The Assistant Director's eyes settled on her, upright and unrestrained for just a moment too long

and accidentally allowed her to see his surprise; beside her, Red silently fumed.

"Glad you're back, Red," the man at the door said simply, hands in his pockets.

The hairs on Liz's arm were standing - it definitely was not her doing, but Red's. She tried to break the tension and cleared her throat.

"Aram have anything?"

Cooper nodded. "He's been reviewing the footage and he has a few questions for you...there's a lot of sensitive equipment by his work area that he'd rather not risk."

There were people she'd rather not risk as well. Liz gave him a tight-lipped, tired smile. "Right."

There was a weird, soft scuffing noise before Aram arrived a few moments later, pushing a cart to the doorway. He peeked his head hesitantly into the room and spotted Liz, giving her a small, nervous way.

"Hope you aren't offended but I took some precautions," he declared, looking to her for permission before he pulled a rubber mat out of the pile of clutter on the cart and rolled it out in the room ahead of him. Aram stepped onto it, clutching at a laptop and wearing a pair of rugged, black gloves.

Aram was also wearing rubber rain boots.

Red snorted.

The tech cast a look down at his own shoes. "All I had on short notice," he mumbled before starting. "So the bad news is that you definitely appear to have an ability to manipulate electrical fields," he said, speaking rapidly to get the sentence out. "It explains the freaky lights around here from time to time and uh, why your computer died a few weeks ago when you were angry and trying to write your report."

Liz had forgotten about it; she'd always had terrible luck with technology, chalking it up to ignored ghosts.

"It also appears from reviewing the video that this ability can allow you to channel a current through your body, and if your body is unfortunately touching a conductive piece of furniture with someone else _attached_ to said conductor, they're uh...it's not good," he summarized bluntly.

Liz couldn't hide the dismay on her face, and Red mentally reached out to her and try to calm her down. Aram scrambled to continue.

"I'll need to run some tests, still, with your permission of course, but so far, you've _never_ hurt anyone here at work, right?" When she nodded, he eagerly continued. "I think your body reacted to the threat and tried to protect you; it's...it was bad luck. Very bad luck that he was handcuffed to that table and in that chair and wasn't wearing anything to ground him, and we can test this in a safe environment, but honestly I don't think you're a threat to yourself or others.

"I _know_ you wouldn't intentionally hurt any of us here, we're like your big, weird family. And there's some precautions we can take, like advising people to wear rubber soled shoes around here - of a less nerdy variety, I um, I had these in my car it was all I could manage - and make sure we've got stuff grounded. You know, like baby proofing," he finished with a smile.

She couldn't help but laugh at that. "So I just need to keep myself calm and stay out of situations where my body is going to turn into a human taser," she summarized and then shook her head. "Easier said than done around here."

Red's guilt was sour in his stomach. She cast a quick look in his direction and saw him worrying at his lower lip. He had brought her into this and was regretting it.

Aram continued, tapping his finger nervously on the edge of the tablet. "There was something else I wanted to talk to you about, too," he said, more seriously, and when she noticed that his cheeks were taking on a slight pink hue, she exhaled heavily.

Red had put his hands on her shoulders just before Tom has reappeared.

"Who else has seen _that_ on the video tape?"

"Right now? Just me and Cooper, but Meera was there and she's super confused about it. The tactical team was around the corner and didn't actually see it when it happened. _I_ was confused about it before I started putting a couple of things together."

"What things?" Red asked with a frown, his blue eyes darting to the tablet in Aram's hands, apprehensive.

Aram exhaled nervously. "This is going to take a little bit of explaining. Here, look."

Quickly, the technopath brought a video up on a tablet and held it up for her to see, then retracted it and cradled it to his chest with a worried frown.

"I promise I'm going to try not to break it or zap it or...whatever it is we think I can do, Aram," she assured him, and his eyes widened.

"Oh no that's...that's not why uh...Agent Keen the video is...well, it's got-"

"-Today, Aram," snapped Red, impatiently, and Liz didn't even think about it before she elbowed him in the side, hard. The tech stared.

"Huh." It took him a second to recover, but he stared at the space between them. "That answers...okay that confirms something. Back to that in a second," he said hurriedly, and she was fairly certain he was talking to himself before he addressed her more confidently. "What I meant to say was that the video has Tom on it, but I needed to show you something. I can just show you schematics if you don't want to see the video footage."

See a video of her killing someone? No thanks. She nodded. "I think I'd prefer that."

Aram tapped the screen and swiped a few times, beginning to explain as he did so, "So I've got our interrogation rooms rigged up with all kinds of environmental monitors since we deal with all kinds of people and entities; I keep them synchronized with the video feed so we can go back and see if there were particular stressors that trigger fluctuations in those readings," he explained, lapsing into the more calm variant of the man she knew when he was trying to teach her something about the equipment they used. "Normally, we kind of have a heads up and I know to monitor the levels we're interested in, but luckily I've got the schematics logging in feedback every .3 seconds and tied to the timestamp from the video for when I'm _not_ directly watching them, like today."

He flipped the tablet around to show her a complicated dashboard of graphs, a mostly black screen with words too small for her to read from her spot on the bed. She knew if she got closer she might make him nervous, so she simply squinted and leaned forward a little.

"You made this, didn't you?" she asked as she read over some of the readings. In addition to temperature and pressure and a sound recording, he had the readout from an EMF detector integrated as well. "This is amazing."

"You're kind of a freakish genius, Aram," praised Red.

"Thanks?" he said, openly looking at Reddington with surprise.

"What are you showing me with this?" Liz gently brought the tech back to the topic and he jumped a little before continuing.

"Right. Okay, so this here?" Aram tapped the screen with his pen. "These were the EMF readings throughout the entire investigation. They were totally normal when you first went into the room, but once Tom started to speak about uh...about your abilities and how his employer wanted you to come work for them, they started to fluctuate. Just a little at first, but it wasn't until he mentioned uh..." he trailed off, casting a nervous look in Red's direction - Liz had forgotten that Aram considered saying the ghost's name as their version of 'Voldemort', despite assurances it wasn't an issue any more. "Mr. R., when they suddenly increase and for short burst of time. Like morse code or something...I think that this explains why you can pretty much call up a spirit when you focus on them. Your body is able to hone in on that spirit's specific frequency."

"Agent Keen isn't a radio, Aram," Red refuted, crossing his arms.

"No she's…," he stopped himself and addressed her instead. "It's more like you're a human EM pump."

Liz tried to process that and failed miserably. "I don't follow. I don't follow that at all."

"EM pumps work by constantly moving a current through an electrically conductive liquid...that's your blood in this case, I think, and your ability is supplying that current." He held up his hands defensively. "I haven't figured out the specifics of it at this point, I mean, these are all kind of different forms of power but your body doesn't seem to know the difference, but I think I'm getting there. You're giving off the kind of energy that ghosts are attracted to, the kind they can draw energy from. I think that's why we always find they go after you and why you can pull them to you. You're like...like a magnet for ghosts. Or catnip."

Liz knew Red was watching for her reaction to that news, but she continued to focus on Aram.

Aram put his tablet back on his cart of equipment and pulled out a handheld EMF detector. "Further, I think that I know the reason my box didn't work on containing you, Mr. R.. The settings weren't strong enough."

He took the opportunity to preen, of course. "I _am_ the ghost with the most."

"That's...not quite what I meant," Aram replied, uncomfortably. He switched on the device and after a moment of looking for permission, held it front of Liz, then moved it over to Red, satisfied with the numbers on its screen. "Yes! Okay. Hypothesis just proven. You two have the same frequency. You're like...perfectly attuned. Oh this is so cool." He held his hands out with a serene sort of smile. "I think that's why you can touch one another."

He shook his head frantically, immediately adding. "I don't mean _touch_ touch. That would be...I mean _I_ don't have a problem with it but socially that would be a little weird. Granted, dates would cheaper but there's that whole 'dead person' thing where people just probably jump to conclusions about necro-Shutting up. Shutting up now. Sorry."

Beside her, Red tilted his head to the side a little, a privately pleased look on his face as he watched the man ramble.

Her head was spinning with everything that had just taken place. Liz managed to utter a thank you and promise to make time with Aram to run the tests, and Red told the technopath he'd think about assisting. Liz knew if she asked, he wouldn't refuse her, but they'd have to keep the whole situation extremely discreet.

Cooper said the same thing when he came back a few seconds later, making Aram promise not to share his theories or the news with anyone - in fact, he was told to stay away from Meera for the time being since she'd be able to get the truth out him with little effort; they'd brief her after they figured out just what the hell had happened.

Liz felt nauseous and dizzy and suddenly didn't want to be anywhere else but home, and in her bed. Frequencies and magnets and currents could all wait for later.

Aram pushed his cart out of the room and Cooper assured her she could stay if she'd like, but she immediately refused the offer.

Red popped up before her, helping her stand up. Liz was slow to do so, swaying on her feet when she did, and very aware of Cooper's gaze on them, on their joined hands.

Red was aware, too.

He shifted, just barely, tilting himself towards Liz, putting a shoulder between her and the Assistant Director, and the tension she felt in her back wasn't her own. The ghost watched her with a worried look until she gave him a brisk nod; she was ready to go.

Reddington made sure he was between Liz and the other man when they got to the door, and his guiding touch asked her to pause for a moment.

"Harry, you were one of my best friends when I was alive," he said, quietly. "And you've kept one of the most important things I ever did up and running, and done a damn good job at it, and for that, I am grateful."

His voice dropped, deep and a rough warning. "But if you _ever_ touch so much as a hair on Liz's head again, I will make the Bell Witch look like a fucking Disney character."

Liz mortified, said his last name as a warning as she kept walking and he complied, trailing along behind her. She took the least-populated path to the elevator to exit, pressing the button with desperation.

Aram was incredibly smart about a lot of things, but she was not a computer or another piece of technology - what if he was wrong? What if this was the first 'flare up' of her other ability and it was only going to get worse from here?

"You've had control of your ability to see the dead for years, you can handle this." Red appeared beside her and she shook her head, and leaned against the wall of the elevator for a second before thinking better of it. She could probably fry the power grid.

"I haven't been able to turn that _off_ since you tried to touch me the first time. That isn't really reassuring," she replied as the elevator came to a stop. They walked out to find Dembe waiting for them and she stopped walking to retrieve her keys.

"You are _not_ driving yourself," the ghost beside her said, incredulous and aware of her thoughts. "You're probably under some kind of 'do not operate heavy machinery' restrictions and those asshats didn't see fit to inform you."

"I don't live that far away."

He said nothing, but his alarm for her flared in her gut and she huffed, ceasing her attempt to grab her keys out of her jacket pocket, giving him an expectant look, eyebrows raised which clearly said _'Happy now?'_.

Dembe looked from one to the other, brows knitted. "Care to fill me in?"

"I uh, there was an accident earlier," she censored herself, aware of just how open the garage was. "I don't...I can't talk about it right now, but," she paused to close the space between her and her friend, typing the reason out on her phone, as well as her fear for his safety, and passed him device so he could read it.

Almost immediately, he passed it back, giving her a bolstering look. "For you, I'll take the chance, Elizabeth."

First Aram, then Cooper, and now Dembe - she felt humbled at their faith in her. She took a deep breath and ducked into the town car. Red was already in the backseat, but he shut the door behind her, giving her a reassuring smile.

The ride was uneventful, and she excused herself as soon as they were in the apartment so she could shower, leaving Red to fill their friend in; she can't go through telling it again. On her way through her bedroom and into the bathroom, she eyed all of the metal, conductive surfaces and items in her apartment and then tried to figure out what would work to ground a person and then put all of it out of her mind as she stepped into the shower because _she was not going to lose control_ , couldn't afford to.

It helped, the way showers had always helped her - she was absolutely aware it was mostly all in her head, an incredible demonstration of the mind embracing a symbol to the point it tricked itself into believing in it. She relaxed and tried to imagine that new part of her packed away in a box - no, she changed her mind - in the same kind of sealed off nook a fire extinguisher went into, complete with a 'IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, BREAK GLASS' sign.

All the while, she was aware of Red's thoughts and emotions, a steady buzz in the back corner of her mind, like a TV in another room just loud enough she could make out what they were saying if she chose to focus on it. He was concerned about her, shaken by wherever he'd been before she was able to get him back. There was something about a box, he was indecisive about it, worried over-

He chided her mentally for prying, and she tried to focus on her own thoughts and feelings once more to give him his privacy.

They'd settled so nicely into their relationship, and so quickly. Like it was gravity. Like…

Like magnets. Like it was inevitable.

What if there was something about her abilities that had drawn him to her? Their more incorporeal targets always seemed to zero in on her, during a pursuit or an interrogation. They'd move towards her, like a moth to the flame…

The calm she had only just started to grasp was slipping away from her as she tucked her towel around herself and step out of her tub. She took a steadying breath, put her thoughts to the side, and started preparing for bed. Soon after starting the process, she heard the front door shut, and knew Dembe had left for the evening.

She slipped into the empty bed, expecting herself to fall asleep immediately. Despite everything that had just happened, she still found herself unable to, and kept returning to Aram's words.

" _You're a human EM pump_."

Liz knew if she wasn't so mentally exhausted, she'd never have even allowed herself to entertain the idea, never have even wondered if that was the reason for Red's interest in her.

And that couldn't be the answer. The connection they had went back more than two decades. It was deeper and stronger and stranger than anything she could explain.

And what about her part of it? Her feelings for Red were...they threatened to overwhelm her at times. She was addicted to him, to his touch, his voice, the feeling of his thoughts and emotions in her own mind. As unique as their situation was, she could see this working out, bizarrely. She knew he'd always look young and breathtakingly handsome as he did now, even as she grew older, but her anxiety over that came and went, and went more frequently than it came these days.

On her part, she was certain of her attraction, but what about him?

"You're thinking about it." It should have been a question, but it sounded more like a statement. He was leaning against the doorway, arms crossed and eyes, deadly serious, settled on her. She'd been so deep in thought that she hadn't heard him when he'd finished tidying up in the other room.

She sat up, positioning pillows behind herself for the inevitably long discussion ahead of them. "I was," she responded carefully. "Kind of hard not to think it may be a contributing factor here."

The man advanced into the room, taking his spot on his side of the bed. His side. In their room. He wasn't even able to sleep and yet it seemed perfectly logical for them to share a bedroom.

He shrugged, and maybe if he was truly the age he looked, it would have seemed unpolished or childish, but after 50 years of existing, it was neat and weighty. "I have always found myself attracted to powerful women - never in such a literal sense, attraction and power-wise, but anything is possible."

He was nervous about whatever he was going to say, because it was clear the statement wasn't the end of what he wanted to express - and it was _Raymond Reddington_ , for crying out loud. Most ghosts barely could verbalize a single word for a recorder or device, and here he was spouting lines that bordered at times on Shakespearean.

Liz swallowed, trying to make her nod of acknowledgement seem curt but understanding even though she felt her own stomach plunge in dismay.

"However, that's just a small facet of it - of my feelings," he hesitated, taking her hand in his, she slid her fingers between his, and they both stared down at the contact, "for you."

When he brought his head back up and looked at her, she couldn't do anything but stare back; he looked vulnerable, and more than slightly scared.

He went barreling into words he spoke next, and she found herself paralysed by them. "I've never found an EM pump to be breathtaking, captivating. Never desired to make some shoddy piece of equipment happy every way I can and then some, at any cost, never wanted to...to see some fucking _battery pack_ come apart because of the way I touch her - it. That's…

"I am shrewd. I am cunning. There are people who _fear_ me, and with good reason. Today, when I was in that place and I couldn't get to you, it...you were all I could think about. And I know, I know how undeserving I am of what you have given me and yet I…"

His lips parted, and he tore his free hand through his hair, but didn't look away from her.

"I love you, Elizabeth, with all of me. And I don't know how much that it really is, what's left of it, but it's...you have it. You have me."

Her heart was pounding so hard that her chest hurt, and her eyes stung with tears.

She surged forward, onto her knees, and wound her shaking arms around him, holding to him tightly. He pressed a kiss to her sternum, guiding her to sit across his lap in attempt to bring her lips close enough for a kiss, a kiss that was possessive and promising from both of them.

Liz pulled back from it, cupped her hands around his face, framing it. "You have me," she whispered before sealing her lips over his again and then resting her forehead against his. "I'm...I'm yours. I used to hate that idea. I couldn't understand how I could remain my own but still feel like I am so much a part of, of someone else and yet...I can't even explain how much I mean that Raymond."

"I have you and you have me," he repeated, like it was some kind of vow. "We just need to believe in that."

She nodded, and played with the edge of his blazer, running her hand underneath it to rest her hand against the curve of his ribcage while she came to lean against him, less miserable and desperate than earlier, when they seemed to cling to one another like they could be separated again without a moment's notice.

She repeated her earlier question, in the privacy of their sanctuary "Where did you go?"

He was very still for a moment; Red made such a point to constantly be moving around, fidgeting and perpetually restless in some attempt to appear more human, that the lack of it was immediately noticeable. Liz pressed a comforting kiss to his neck and ran her fingers soothingly over his side as his apprehension spiked.

"A hallway. I have no idea where Tom went, he wasn't there. It was just, just some dimly lit hallway and there were all of these doors...it just kept going." He shuddered and she held him a little closer. His terror struck some panicking chord in her and she felt her own fight-or-flight feelings start up. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Okay, alright," she murmured softly. He was shaking and she did her best to assure him of his safety. "Hey, hey, you're back. I got you back. We're together and that's all that matters."

Liz held onto him and shut her eyes, willing herself to forget about what had taken place, to forget about Tom, at least for the moment.

"We're together and that's all that matters."


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back! My unintended break did not secure me the rights to a damn thing, however. Thank you to everyone who has read this and enjoyed it - 10 months ago, this started as a very short fic for Halloween. We're coming up to the 1 year anniversary and guess what? This is the penultimate chapter of Part 1 of this fic. Thanks for sticking around.

**Reminder, if you are reading this anywhere other than Archive of Our Own or FFnet, or have had to pay for access to this story, you are reading a stolen copy of this work. Please notify me at[hasfar2gofics@gmail.com](mailto:hasfar2gofics@gmail.com).**

* * *

**L** iz waited until the plodding, protesting squeak of Aram's rubber boots had disappeared down the hallway before she turned to Meera beside her.

"Off the record, I'm really happy you grabbed Aram by the arm and made him tell you all about this," she confided while reaching for her water bottle and grimacing as another drop of sweat rolled down the space between her shoulder blades.

Meera looked slightly flushed from their session, but Liz was the one who spent their sparring practice mentally tamping down her ability, only giving her coworker a small jolt when Aram intentionally tried to distract her by throwing a tennis ball at her head.

Liz continued, "Cooper might not be happy about it, but with the two of you, I feel like I'm making progress."

"You certainly are," agreed the petite woman. "Now go wash up and come back to my desk - I switched up my soup recipe and I need you to taste-test it. Ressler has no palate and thinks all vegetables taste 'green," Meera complained, with an over-the-top grimace.

"I'm going to have to try it later," Liz replied, apologetic. "I have some errands to run."

She was happy in that moment that Meera wasn't within touching distance, having started to walk down the hallway already. Then, deciding to give her friend more of the truth since she was trying to help her gain back some of her normalcy, she amended her statement. "I've got lunch plans, to be honest."

If she hadn't already had lunch plans with Red before she'd left for work, she would have made them by now. He was nervous about something and blocking her out. Their connection felt like a limb going numb, definitely still attached but the feeling in it was mostly gone. Her text to him earlier had gone unanswered, but Dembe had had the decency of assuring her they were still picking her up at lunchtime and yes, there was some kind of bug up Red's ass today.

Not that Dembe would ever say anything like that out loud, actually. Liz wasn't going to rat out his _insightful_ texts to him employer anytime soon.

The other woman made no comment, but gave her a knowing, maternal look of slight disapproval, and started down the hall.

Liz made her way into the empty gym locker room and huffed with frustration; she'd forgotten her change of clothes in her car, but decided to be extremely optimistic and scrounge through her locker for something that could pass as an outfit, at least to shower and throw on to get out to her car.

Unsuccessful, she shut her locker with more force than necessary and found her lunch date on the other side of the door. She would have probably jumped if she hadn't sensed him a moment earlier.

"How far away is today's swanky lunch?" she asked him, and he sagged a little at her lack of surprise for a moment before darting forward to give her a kiss to properly greet her. She made it brief; he knew she was upset that he was blocking her, but he wasn't making an attempt to explain why.

"Dembe picked a sushi place an hour away from here, so you are going to get tied up in something Blacklist-related and not be able to come back on time," he replied, breezily.

She decided to simply state it; if he answered with an unrelated question, she'd know he was up to something. "You're blocking me."

"Yes," he answered simply, surprising her. When he continued to stare at her, eyes seemingly open and vulnerable but without further explanation, Liz started for the elevator with a frustrated sigh and an eyeroll.

"That's a new trick and I don't like it."

As soon as the doors closed, he was standing before her, incredibly close, and he allowed some of his excitement to bubble up and out and it hummed under her skin. Liz felt her heart accelerate and her gut clench.

He was trying to keep his face passive, but there was a light in his eyes, a brightness that made her forget how to breathe for a moment.

"What if I told you we could be together?" Red asked her, voice low and serious as he slowly trailed fingertips down her arm and hand until he tangled their fingers together. "Really together."

Desire soured into disquiet as she realized just how focused he was on this, whatever it was...it was a good thing he was dead, since his recklessness would have lead to life-endangering situations otherwise. Well, more of them. She stared back at him steadily, knowing he'd be able to pick up on her curiosity. If she waited it out long enough, he'd just supply her the info.

He kept his own gaze steadfast, a worrying sign he was already aware she would protest whatever this was.

"What if I told you I got us invited to a party for people like us _and_ you get to arrest people?"

Her attempt at calm and collected completely dissolved. " _Why_ would I need to arrest people like us?"

"A fantastic question, Lizzie" he praised, brightly. "One I'll answer over lunch."

Sushi and illegal, paranormal party plans. What a great lunch. "At least let me spare poor Dembe a car ride with the windows needing to be rolled down; I need to grab my change of clothes from the-" she stopped mid-sentence when the lights went out and the elevator screeched to a halt. The silence was deafening, pressing on her in the absence of the typical mechanical groans and hum of the far off fans and generators that kept their secret headquarters operational. A siren's growing keen sliced through it.

Thanks to his faint glow, she noticed him scrunching his eyebrows together. "What's wrong?"

"I feel weird," he muttered, his perturbed expression increasing. "Like I'm being cal-"

Suddenly, Liz was alone in the elevator, staring at the empty space before her. His alarm melded with hers and she yelped out his name three times.

She called for him again, with no luck.

That's when she heard the unmistakeable sound of gunshots and her training kicked in. This was the kind of situation she'd been drilled for, despite the desire for a desk job. A strange sort of calm-alertness washed over her as she tried to keep her ability in check and assess the situation.

They shots were below her, no doubt coming from the Morgue.

Liz prioritized; Red was a ghost, and he'd been standing next to her a second ago. No one had thrown an exorcism grenade at him, and she could feel him close by. That meant shifting her attention to her coworkers, after she got herself out of the metal trap she was currently in.

By the time she'd crawled free, shocked and disarmed a strange man in tactical gear she'd come across in the abandoned hallway, and made her way towards the Box, where she could hear noise and sense Red, Liz was entirely aware of the situation being very awfully bad.

Before she could round the corner, another member of the intruding group was able to sneak up on her. She struggled as best she could, but he was gloved and despite all of her efforts, she couldn't make contact with his skin.

Face pressed into the scraping cement floor, her hands were secured behind her with a plastic zip tie, much to her dismay. At least if it had been a pair of cuffs, her dad had taught her tricks to get out of them, or it would have given her a conductive surface to turn into a weapon. Shit.

Liz was hauled up and led towards the Box. Even from this far away, she could feel the buzz of the EM pumps, a strange sensation she'd never been aware of before, but now it left the hairs on her arms raised. How high did they have those things cranked?

The answer was evident when she saw the Box crammed with her ghost coworkers. Even with her status as 'ghost catnip', Red didn't stand a chance against this EM pump.

The man roughly handling her was dressed to match a slew of others, and they were surrounding the other half of the Morgue's team.

Her living colleagues were all similarly restrained by plastic zip ties; Cooper's lip was split and Meera's brow had a nasty gash, but was paying it no mind because _oh Jesus no_ she was clamping her hand around a wound on Ressler's leg. Barely 30 minutes had passed since Red had disappeared from the elevator, and she had no idea when Ressler had been shot, but from his pallor, it couldn't have been long ago and he was now bleeding out. Meera was the only one with her hands free, but if she tried to do anything to help their team, they'd lose Ressler. Oh god, Dembe was in the group as well, eyes moving quickly from Liz to the Box.

"That's right...Elizabeth? You must be Elizabeth. Cooper was hoping you had gotten away," said one of the men, voice strangely calm. Now in the group with the others and forced to kneel, she could see the speaker more clearly in the dim light. He looked a little younger than the others, softer somehow.

'Telepath', Cooper mouthed at her. Great. That meant no surprise attacks on their assailants. The only people capable of unexpected action were trapped in the Box - clearly it was hooked up to the emergency power and its current extreme setting was triggered by the power being cut in the building. At least the bone-jarringly shrill emergency alarm was going to help distract from their thoughts being heard.

" _You_ certainly have grown," remarked a voice from the Box, crisp with a British accent. Liz turned to see a man leaning against the frame and looking out with a nauseating leer. His face was extremely disfigured on one side, like he'd been burnt. Something about him was familiar, striking a resounding chord of terror in her gut. "I can see why you've stuck around, Reddington."

Red stared straight ahead, jaw tight, but his simmering anger and prickling fear were pushing through to her despite her best attempt to block it out; she needed a clear head, needed to stay focused. She was too close to her colleagues and could hurt them if she lost control-

"Oh, what else do you do?" asked the telepath, a little too gleefully, squatting down in front of her but keeping a distance. Like you did with a dog when you weren't sure if it was friendly.

Accordingly, she gave him a feral look, giving her anger a small outlet. "Two inches closer and I'll show you."

Not a lot of exposed skin on any of them, just their faces. A headbutt would allow her the contact.

The telepath stood as she cursed mentally. "Watch this one," he warned the others. "Something about touching."

He reached for gloves in his pocket and as he started to put them on, she saw it, saw the scar on his pale skin. It matched her own and - she focused on the sharp pain of the plastic cutting into her wrists, on the bruises forming on her knees, the sting of of the scratches on her face. Forced herself to clear her mind that way.

"And if she starts to even say that guy's name, knock her out," he continued.

Ressler cursed loudly. He must have been the one thinking about it.

A woman, looking more overheated than most of them already were without the air circulating, crawled out from behind the Box. "There's no access to the wiring," she informed the team, wire cutters in hand.

The scorched ghost inside the Box cleared his throat. "Wesley, if you could get one of them to give up the override code, we could move this along."

And what would happen after they let him out of the Box? He knew Red, from where, she wasn't sure, had never heard of him. _She_ knew him, somehow, but didn't know _how_ …

She tried not to think about Aram missing, immediately putting the thought out of her head and focused instead on Ressler, who groaned on the ground before her, and she watched how his hand flexed into a white-knuckled fist. Meera's hand was clearly not enough to hold pressure on the wound. Liz focused on the dismay she felt and her connection with Red, hoping he'd understand what she was trying to communicate.

"Garrick, I can promise you that Agent Malik will only take off her belt and use an empty gun clip to act as a tourniquet for her partner," Red said suddenly, voice intentionally loud enough to carry over to them. "Will your men let her do that? I think this team will be in a better frame of mind to give you want you want if you let them take care of their friend on the floor, there."

The ghost beside him gave a little lazy wave and signaled his men to permit the action, which Meera immediately jumped to do with shaking hands. One of the guards retrieved an empty clip from somewhere nearby, discarded on the floor, and handed it to Meera, who immediately put it to use.

Garrick looked a little more than displeased that effectively, his people were taking orders from Red, but he struggled to remain looking relaxed.

"Better?" He asked, huffing. "Serves you right for making such a fuss instead of giving in when we tried to take this place by force. Now which one of you lot has the code to this blasted thing?"

Wes stood before the group, his eyes closed as he appeared to be waiting for one of them to think about it. Honestly, Liz didn't have it; they'd never trusted her with that kind of thing.

"This one," he declared, finally, pointing at Cooper, and he grabbed a gun from another member of their dark-clad group, he walked right up to him and put it to his forehead. "The problem is, he's a telepath and doing a good job of blocking me."

He pushed on the gun, causing Cooper's head to tip back further; her boss kept his face impressively blank. The seconds ticked by, and whatever the man was trying to do to break down Cooper's mental blocks wasn't working, and it was frustrating him.

Garrick sighed theatrically. "He's got a hero complex, Wesley - you must have realized that by now. Threatening him will do nothing. Threaten his team, however…"

There was the sound of several gun safetys clicking off, and Liz swallowed. Not good not good none of this was-

"No," Wesley said slowly, as if something was dawning on him. "No, one by one will take too long." He grabbed a grenade from one of the Morgue's guard's belts and brought it over to the Box. Garrick looked on gleefully even as her teammates within the space reacted with horror. Red's fear prickled her skin.

"One of these will take out half of your team," Garrick said, and shrugged. "Will take me out too, but honestly, my employer's goal can still be reached."

"Knew you couldn't be pulling the strings, Anslo," Red quipped, a falsely smug smile spreading on his lips, his chin raised. Trying to stall or divert attention. Smart thinking. "What's your angle here? What do you want?"

"Why you, of course, Red."

The smirk flickered for a second, but barely. "I'm flattered, Anslo. All these years later after one chance meeting? Absolutely flattered."

"You come with me and I'll leave Cooper's team alone, as long as they do the same to my men. I'll even vouch for my own team doing the same," offered Garrick, clearing out that opening left in his words. Liz wasn't sure that other ghosts had to keep promises or couldn't lie like Red, in fact she was sure most of them didn't.

Red looked like he was considering the offer. "And by 'alone' you mean intact, unharmed?"

Garrick nodded. "Not sure about the ginger," he drawled, jerking a thumb in Ressler's direction. Liz realized his breathing had gotten a lot more shallow and he'd quieted down. Meera was whispering quietly for him to hold on, just hold on. "The rest, alive or dead, I promise we won't touch a hair on their heads if you walk away with us."

Liz chanted in her head for him not to take the offer, loudly enough that she saw Wes' eyes flicker over towards her, but eventually Red turned to Cooper.

"Tell them, Harry," he bid, voice level and low, and Liz remembered then how much the Morgue and all it did meant to Red, how much he was part of its creation. Cooper would have probably given up the code if this had continued; his loyalty to the team was too great. Red was trying to tell his friend it was going to be okay.

Cooper licked his lips, wincing as his tongue touched the wound there, before answering. "The passcode is Casper."

A few of Garrick's team laughed at that, Garrick joining in. "Oh I'm going to remember that one, that's funny," he remarked then waved at Wesley. "Okay, you know what to do."

The invading team started to move away from the Morgue's living members, towards the exit near the keypad that would shut off power to the Box. Wesley on his way past snagged Liz by the upper arm and pulled her to stand.

Red, immediately enraged, whipped around. "You said-"

"His team, Raymond," reminded Garrick, eyes on Liz the entire time. "I know full well that Elizabeth Keen only joined the ranks at your behest. As far as anyone is concerned, she's one of your's."

"Cooper," Liz called out, her voice rising with panic as she realized what was in place by the doorway. "They've got a bomb."

"Good eyes, love," praised Anslo. "Won't touch a hair on their heads, but I'll blow 'em up if I have to. And we'll detonate it remotely if you don't come with us Red, or if anyone tries to follow us - understand?"

Soon enough, Liz was being brought back into the pitch-black darkness of the Morgue, beyond the inhabited areas and deeper into the building's space. The Morgue had briefly been a post office headquarters for the DC area, out of the busy area of a then smaller city. It didn't last long. Red had shown her the old loading dock that had been built as a station for the mail to be dropped off and sorted, but the streetcar line never expanded as expected. What were they planning once they got there?

Red and Garrick appeared within their group; Liz hadn't heard any kind of explosion so she hoped the agreement was still being held up.

He moved to the place beside her with a snarling command to one of Garrick's men, and immediately moved close enough to brush against her, like he needed to touch her for confirmation she was okay.

" _Trust me?_ " a familiar voice echoed in her mind. She let herself immediately answer with confidence, too quick for the telepath to pick up on.

Her own thought processes were going to be detected, but Red's were free game. She could trust him with her own safety in the situation, knew he could take the lead in this and see them through.

He stopped walking as they passed through the massive steel doors that were typically closed to prevent access to the old loading dock. Garrick's team was mostly still in the Morgue, guarding their backs, and their leader gave Red an impatient look.

"Red, I wouldn't stall if I were you. Any of the lives lost are going to be on your head." Wesley, beside her, held up the triggering device to confirm the threat.

"Good," the ghost beside her snarled. The metal doors swung shut and he yanked Liz away from them, and untouched by anyone, the button on the device was pressed down.

Liz struggled to open her eyes, unaware she'd ever closed them. Her ears were ringing, as was the entirety of her skull.

Even with a barrier between them and the explosion, Wesley, Liz, and the two remaining guards were thrown off of their feet. Liz couldn't see much in the dark space, but she could make out the sound of rushing water where there hadn't been before. Ahead of them was some kind of now rapidly dripping puddle...a water pipe? It couldn't have been long since the explosion, but Red had been successful at releasing the tie from her wrists and was trying to get her to stand.

He froze when a gun moved to hover pressed against Liz's temple. It wasn't as steady as it would have been, had Red been controlling it.

"Cute, Raymond, but I wouldn't try that again. No guarantees she'll come out of this like me, right?"

"That bomb was bolted to the floor," rasped Wesley beside her, pushing himself up off of the ground. "How did-"

"Ghost with the most, asshole," Liz quipped, unable to stop herself despite their situation. Definitely a concussion. One of the guards, gloved, yanked at her arms. This was getting old fast.

It took her a second to realize Garrick was laughing, practically howling.

"'Ghost with the most'? Do you really use that line?" he asked Red. The gun dropped a little, but it would still be a lethal shot for her if it went off from its new position.

"It sticks with people."

"It's full of shit," Garrick replied, and when he saw their confusion, seemed even more delighted. "You...you don't know, do you?" He laughed again. "Oh they never told me you didn't _know_."

Jesus, the guy should audition for the part of a Bond villain, no makeup needed.

Liz realized she'd said that out loud a second later. Garrick snapped his mouth shut and looked at her with distaste. Sore subject, clearly.

"That fire wasn't the end for many of us you know," he snapped. "Not all of us walked away from it like the two of you."

The fire. Liz stared at him for a moment, realizing now that that age-old, knee-jerk _fear_ was what his face triggered in her. She knew him. She knew him from the fire, or the events before it.

"Oh she's remembering now," Wesley informed his boss. "Took her long enough."

She did her best to ignore him, even as Red's anger and confusion spiked, and she watched the actions of the man who was securing her wrists. If she kept them as they were, wrist bone against wrist bone and spanning the most width possible, she might be able to have enough space to twist them and, well she didn't want to have to slip out of them by dislocating her thumb, since she'd need to fight back-

"Curious," the mangled ghost declared suddenly, still giving her a thorough once-over, and she tried to remind Red to remain calm, but his anger simmered and the hairs on her arms were rising. "How does this," he gestured between Liz and Red, "even work, what with Reddington's...corporeal displacement?"

He shrugged when neither answered. "Well, whatever blows up your skirt. Let's go."

Liz and Red ignored him as they advanced along the long dock. Their captor jauntily hummed a song that Liz knew, she was sure of it, but couldn't put her finger on it at first. She went over her mental music catalog until she discovered the answer. The Smiths. Totally the Smiths.

_Girlfriend in a coma, I know, I know. It's serious._

Red's head snapped to the side to stare at her, wide-eyed.

Liz felt like she couldn't breathe, dizzy and overwhelmed. She stopped walking as she tried to take a deep breath, struggling like she did so long ago, the heat too much, the air too thick

"Name it and I'll give it to you," Red said suddenly, voice very quiet and deadly serious. "Just leave her out of it."

"Here's the thing, Red," huffed Garrick while crossing his arms. "I've got my orders, and if I follow them, I get what I want. They tell me they want the both of you, so that's what they get - she belongs to them anyway...And in a way, you do too.

"After all of these years of care, upkeep, you owe them. You might not have been using it, but they kept it nice and safe for you."

"What is it that they promised you, Anslo?" Red gritted out. "What do you want?"

"I want your body."

Red didn't let his confusion show, instead he allowed a smug, thin lipped smile to cross his features. "Anslo, I had _no_ idea you felt that way about me," he drawled. "Two admissions in an hour. Wow. With surgery and an old school Catholic exorcism I could totally see us working out in the long run."

Wesley almost tripped in his shock at Red's words. Anslo, for his part, stared stone-faced for a moment, and then laughed.

"This repartee we've got going, that's why I think this is going to work, Red. I'm willing to share."

" _Name._ " His voice echoed angry and clipped in her mind.

"Reddington," she whispered under her breath, a knee-jerk reaction.

"Hey!" Wesley yelled, and grabbed at the gun still hovering beside her head in a moment of anger. Perfect.

She swung around and knocked his hand to the side while she grabbed at his face, yelling her ghost's name again.

Wesley went down, dead weight, maybe even dead.

She heard the splash of water under her feet and knew what was coming.

She was staring at the gun in front of her.

" _Pipe at your 5. Name and duck."_

"Reddington!" she shouted, dropping to her side and the ground and smacking her hand down into the puddle as the broken pipe swung in their direction, dropping the last two men with it and causing them to land in the puddle as well. The gun's discharge echoed above her, and the guards convulsed as the current ran through the water.

Garrick was shouting, but the echo of the bullet was still resonating in her ears.

" _Love you."_

She heard that loud and clear.

Icy fear rushed down her spine. She was starting to push herself back up when she heard the smallest of metallic _pings_ , just bearing audible to her at the moment, and she jerked her head to the side, already more than aware of what the noise meant. The exorcism grenade were still attached to Wesley's belt from when he'd stolen it, but that didn't prevent it from going off.

"No!" she yelled, unable to stop the grenade's detonation.

She had just enough time to look up and see Red's face and the look of resolve there before they were gone, ripped out of existence.

"No, no no no," she chanted, frantically, and attempted to call him to her. She tried it twice, with all the force and intent behind it from the last time it had been successful, but nothing happened.

What was it with him and this shitty move?

Liz knew she couldn't fall apart, and fought against the nausea and panic flooding her system, and the threat of exhaustion, and tried to focus.

Red wasn't dead.

Ignoring all of questions that brought up, she tried to follow the trail of logic that from that fact. He wasn't dead, and being alive meant somewhere, there was a body. A body that was being taken care of, according to Anslo. She feared what would happen if Anslo didn't contact whoever it was keeping his body.

She had no idea how much time she was had, but she knew it couldn't be long before whoever it was realized something was wrong.

Liz rifled through the pockets of the guards and found a switchblade. There was no way of getting the plastic cuff off, but at least she had something as a weapon. She stashed it in her boot and grabbed the gun.

There was a large opening in the wall of the loading dock where they had clearing blasted through to enter the building. It was a struggle to climb out, but she did, dropping into the weeds and gravel of the train tracks that ran alongside their building, long since abandoned. An armored truck was swinging around the corner as she tried to stand up; she dropped the gun as yet another sea of black exited the vehicle and descended on her, armed to the teeth. Liz raised her hands before her.

If this was more of Anslo's men, they didn't know about her ability, well, her newest one. If they were some kind of back up, called by Aram, getting shot wasn't going to help her get Red back.

It turned out to be the latter, much to her relief. It took some rapidly given security information on her part and radioed confirmation before they believed her, but then they were taking her back into the building.

Cooper looked over from a heated argument with a woman who looked uncannily like Diane Fowler the Assistant Attorney General, as Liz, now unrestrained, sprinted over to him. They exchanged information as quickly as possible.

Ressler was already on his way to surgery at a nearby hospital. Most of Garrick's men had been killed in Red's triggered explosion. They were the only casualties so far that he was aware of.

Liz warned Cooper they would probably need to add three more to the tally, since she was fairly certain she'd killed all three men on the loading dock.

"Good," was Cooper's immediate reply, curling a folder in his hands, as if imagining it was a neck to wring instead.

"Is that who I think that is?" Liz asked jerking her head in the newcomer's direction. In her pearls and expensive business suit, the white-haired woman looked out of place in the chaos around them.

"If you're thinking that's Diane Fowler, you're correct."

" _We need to talk. Privately,"_ she thought, knowing her boss would hear it. He led her over to a corner staircase, causing an indignant noise of protest from the woman. Seeing Dembe off to the side talking to someone on the phone, she waved him over as well, happy to see he was fairly unharmed.

Before she could get out another word, Dembe gave her a bone-crushing hug.

"I am glad to see you're alive."

"You too," she replied, giving him as big a smile as she could manage at that moment, but she withdrew from the embrace because the life of the man she cared about was no doubt in danger and they needed to start looking _now_ if they had any chance of finding him.

"Raymond Reddington is alive. His body is in a coma somewhere," she said, with no preamble, and the shock was evident on both men's faces. "Trust me, Red didn't know _either_."

She continued, addressing Cooper. "Sir, I don't know how much time we have, I don't know where he is, but there are people who have been caring for his body and they are probably looking for confirmation of our kidnapping as we speak. We have to move if we are going to find him."

"Where is he?" Cooper asked, and then corrected himself. "I mean, the version we're used to...I can't even begin to process _that_."

"Me neither," she assured him, and swallowed against the tightening in her throat. "I don't...he set off a grenade to take Garrick out. He's back over _there_ , but I've tried everything I can and I can't get him back. I can't-" the words choked her, and she stopped, swallowing thickly. "I don't know what else to do."

"Finding his body is probably the best start," Cooper rationalized. "And since it's a living breathing person, we're not limited to our usual resources."

"Raymond has a contact that could assist us as well," Dembe offered. "She was on her way to help us search for you, Elizabeth, but we can give her a different assignment when she arrives."

"I'm going to thoroughly enjoy explaining that information to Diane." Cooper looked a little miffed by the news, but then shook his head and looked heavenward. "Whole lot of nonsense is starting to make sense now," he declared.

"Like what?"

"Like Fowler coming in here and demanding to know why we've been secretly working with one of the FBI's secretly Most Wanted. I don't think she realized he's looked pretty different to us."

Cooper uncurled the folder in his hands and flipped it open, showing her its contents.

Even with the facial hair, even with the hat, even with the years and extra weight, she'd know him anywhere. She didn't need to see the name in stark black bold print below the usual header to know it was him.

It proved her own personal pet theory right, though.

Raymond Reddington wore hats really damn well.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still don’t own a damn thing, even after all this time.

**C** ooper was going to be up in the office with Diane Fowler for a long time. It was time Liz didn't have to spare; she and Dembe left immediately to go meet with Red's resource. Meera had already promised to cover for them by saying Liz was going to get looked over at the hospital.

At the moment, she couldn't really care if she was directly going against orders, if Dembe thought he knew someone who would be able to find Red's body, she'd do whatever it took.

Liz pulled out the Wanted poster that she'd lifted from one of Fowler's team and stared at the black and white surveillance capture.

She was trying to figure out how a comatose man was being photographed easily enough to have those photos passed through intelligence channels to the FBI to update his Most Wanted poster and coming up empty handed. That same man was apparently on the top of an extremely secret hit list that only the upper echelon of the US intelligence community knew about, for reasons that were pretty similar to the ones Cooper was going after him for. Raymond had told her there had been several months between the fire and the first thing he could remember as a ghost...what had happened in between?

Garrick had wanted his body, needed Red for some reason, had said he was willing to share.

Dembe's vehicle had been parked around the corner; he'd felt it when the EM pump on the Box had been cranked up and come running, and as a result, had been taken hostage by Garrick's team but his car was out of the barricaded zone. It felt a little surreal to walk out of the chaos of the Morgue to the familiar comfort and quiet of the town car.

It was, however, missing someone.

Liz tried once again to call for Raymond, but had no luck. She cursed and turned to look out the window, trying to keep her tears from being seen by the driver.

"You're exhausted, Liz," chided Dembe. "Give yourself some time to rest and try again."

"Because we have time for that right now," she exhaled heavily and ran her hands over her face and through her hair. "That was totally him in that photo, Dembe. This makes no sense."

"I don't understand it either," he replied, shoulders rising. "But if he has a body, he has a place to come back to. We just need to find it. The woman we are going to see, Samar Navabi, she can find just about anyone alive. She's a tracker, the only one I have ever met so far."

Liz gave him a worried look. "We sure she's good?"

Dembe looked directly ahead, but she knew him well enough to read his embarrassment. "She realized that Raymond Reddington was close to impossible to find, so she looked for me. It worked."

"Wait a second," the woman twisted in the passenger seat and gave him a wide-eyed look. "You're telling me Red's contact is a person who previously had been hired to _find him_?"

Of course. Not only would he admire the skill, but he'd find a way to flip someone to his side.

"Forget that, I should have realized that's _exactly_ what he'd do," Liz laughed to herself, shaking her head and sitting back.

"Raymond has that effect on people."

"We weren't aware he was alive until today, but I can name a good seven people that would gladly take a bullet for him...he's...maybe it's another ability and he doesn't know it."

The brief moment of lightness dissolved and her throat felt tight. Red was as scared as he had been last time, but for the time being, she was trying her best to not project her own panic back to him; it was the last thing he needed right now.

"He can't leave us," she said out loud, voice wavering. "He...we'll get him back."

Dembe glanced over at her, as if considering something for a moment, but then faced the windshield again and continued to race through the city.

The tracker met them in the kitchen of a nearby restaurant, a human sleek shadow against the bright white and metal of the space. Samar Navabi listened to what they could tell her, which wasn't much, and promptly pulled a world atlas out of a heavy bag, placing it flat on the workstation. She clipped the Wanted poster to the shelf above with practiced efficiency.

After a few moments with her eyes closed and her palm flat over the map, she huffed and turned towards them.

"This would be much easier if we had something of his, something he had a connection to - something he touched, physically," Samar amended, plummeting the rising hope in Liz's gut, because she had an apartment full of things he was attached to. There were only a few items from before the fire, though.

"I've got - he has some of his old records in our apartment," Liz offered, realizing the slip a half second too late, but pressing on regardless.

"How far away is that?"

Too far. Anything was too far. She wanted him back and _now_ , knew how much that place frightened him.

Liz turned to Dembe for the keys, but he shook his head.

"I think...I have something in the car."

He returned a minute later with something small in his hand, a sad look in his eyes.

"He was going to give this to you today," Dembe told her while pressing the item into her hands.

The ring box was older, the felt faded at the edges. She opened the box, and small noise of shock choked in the back of her throat.

"Ray," she whispered, and ran her thumb over the thick, austere gold of his Navy class ring. It had been threaded onto a sturdy-looking gold chain disappearing beneath the box's padding.

Liz closed her eyes. She wanted him _here_ , with her. After a steadying breath the dull ache in her chest dissipated enough for her to open her eyes again.

"Will this work?" she asked, voice tight and rough as she passed the ring and chain over to the silent, watchful tracker. Liz felt exposed, emotionally, but pushed the feeling aside.

Samar nodded and took the gold from her with great care, more delicacy than needed really, and Liz felt touched by the respect.

"He has a very strong emotional bond to this," she told them as she cupped the gold in her hand and turned to the map. "We're going to be able to find him with it."

The two friends watched in silence as Samar moved her hand over the map, flipping furiously through the pages. She swiveled suddenly and yanked out another, slimmer book, and flipped to a page with a silhouette Liz recognized very well.

New York state.

The noise Liz made must have been louder than she realized; Dembe put a comforting hand on her shoulder as they looked on.

Another map came out of the bag, this time for New York and the tri-state area. Samar was flipping between several pages, testing something, just as Liz' phone buzzed. She saw Cooper's name on the screen and ignored the call; happy with her or not, he didn't know where she was and it was going to stay that way for the time being.

"Done. There."

Samar's fingernail pressed into the page over Long Island and, yes, Liz knew that street. She knew it because she went to a party and ended up on that street _four fucking times_ while she was trying to find her coworker's home.

There all along. He was so close to her, so many times, and she had no idea.

Her voice cracked and wobbled and she had a false start before she was able to get the question out. "Do we...do we have a team-" she cut herself off, knowing full well the answer with only half a second of thought "-How soon can we get in there? How fast?"

Dembe was already dialing someone on his SAT phone, speaking quickly in German to someone on the other end of the line.

Samar, understanding whatever the commands were, immediately turned to Liz and placed the ring carefully back into her hand.

"I will be able you if they try to move him. I've got a hold of his trail now. If anything happens while we're moving in, we'll know."

"Thank you," she told her, and meant it.

Samar dipped her head in subtle acknowledgement. "We were to meet next week, you know." When Liz's response was a quizzical expression, she continued. "He hoped I could help with his attempt to track them down, the people that did that."

The woman pointed to the scar on Liz's upturned wrist, beyond the ring and chain; self-conscious, she curled her hand around the medal and brought it to her chest, protecting the jewelry and herself.

"He wished to let you know of my loyalty to him, to both of you, before I became your coworker."

Liz echoed the last word questioningly.

Samar smiled. "Your Assistant Director Cooper was convinced by the right people to take on a Moussad agent and liaison who could help your team as a Tracker. Red felt that you and your team could benefit from my assistance - he did not want you to think of me as your protection, since he could not always be with you, but as a friend...our meeting in the week ahead would have served as a chance for you to make the final decision. He stressed his desire for you to be made completely aware of the situation."

Liz snorted, despite the severity of the situation. "He knows how well I would have responded otherwise."

The other woman gave her a somber nod, and seemed to study her for a moment. Liz felt her hackles rise, tried to calm her nerves even as she felt herself on guard.

"He sees you as his equal." She confided, quietly enough that her voice barely carried. "I hope you know that."

Liz didn't respond, not sure how to really, but busied herself with taking the ring out and securing the chain around her neck. Dembe gestured both of them to precede him out of the kitchen, and then for the rest of the race through the city, she curled her finger through metal circle resting low on her sternum.

Time and streets flew by, and they were wheels up before she knew it. Liz continued to play with the ring on the chain, realizing it was definitely going to be one of her tells moving forward. Red could tease her for it all he wanted, she didn't care as long as he was with her.

There was little fanfare. Her heart pounded in her ears and everything was bright, sun bleached almost, and everything seemed to rush by until she set foot through the damn doors of the quiet, well-maintained duplex. Samar slipped past her, lethal and stealthy like the rest of Red's team, and even though Liz was prepared to mirror those actions a half-second earlier, the moment her foot hit the threshold, it was as if everything slowed down.

The weight of the pull in her chest, drawing her up the stairs behind the team as they cleared the house, was heavier than her flak vest.

The house was so well kept. So clean. So bright.

The room she stepped into was familiar to her. She saw now why she was mistaken in the past, during those strange visions. The hospital-like, clinical clean of the space was precisely as she recalled it, though seeing it from the other direction was disorienting. There was that flat screen tv that should have tipped her off in the first place. There was that chair, now empty.

A large man in a tacky sweatsuit was being held on the ground, his hands secured behind his back. She recognized his sneakers now from the vision.

Distant popping noises seemed to bring her out of her state of shock as she moved into the space, pushing past two of the team members to the bed; for a half second she worried they were too late... was she too late? Wouldn't she have known somehow if they were too late?

The heart monitor chirped to assure her of his heartbeat - _his heartbeat!_ \- and Liz grabbed onto the handrail on the foot of his bed, eyes hungrily taking in the shape beneath the waffled white fabric.

Raymond Reddington looked like he was sleeping.

Of course, most of the people who had worked with him at the Morgue would not have recognized him for who he was. The years had marked him. His shoulders appeared more rounded as he was now. The hair he prided himself on was darker, clipped short out of practicality, and he had a bit of a beard beginning.

She didn't need to know the contours of his face by heart. She didn't need to recognize the thick gold eyelashes against his cheeks. Something deep in her gut told her who it was before she'd even really taken in the sight of him.

Someone brushed past, a figure in white with a large black duffel bag.

Dembe appeared beside her, a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"We'll question them but we think they're all hired third-party to care for him."

She couldn't tear her eyes away from Red's sleeping form, from the gentle rise and fall of his chest, even as the medic flitted around him, stethoscope on his chest, then lifting the comatose man's eyelids.

The medic gave both Dembe and Liz a grim sort of look. "No response that I can see, but we're going to have to get him set up properly to test if there's any brain activity."

Dembe's hand on her shoulder tightened, even before she processed what was being said.

"No," she finally voiced, quietly, looking at the medic. "He's not...we'd know if he wasn't…"

Wherever he was he still had some connection to this side, if his body still haven't given up. She could still _feel him_.

If he wasn't giving up, neither was she.

She approached the head of the bed slowly, extending her hand before her, holding her breath as her fingers brushed along his skin - so warm and soft and _alive_ \- and waited for one moment, hoping that it would be all it took to wake him up.

But there was no spark, and there was no dramatic wake up.

Liz remained by his bedside the entire time they packed him up and prepared to transfer him somewhere safer, one hand curled around his and the other holding onto his ring.

To be honest, the secured setup for Red wasn't very different from the place he'd been kept before, except now he was surrounded by his own armed and vigilant team.

Liz was sitting in a plush armchair beside his bed when her phone started to ring; it had been powered off for half the day, and the missed call log had given her a small clue of just how irked Cooper would be when she eventually did pick up.

"Agent Keen," he started, a note of warning already edging its way in. "You had better have a damn good reason for going off the grid like that."

"I do," she assured her boss quietly, watching the man in the bed beside her, considering what she should reveal.

"Has your sudden and unapproved departure gained you any clues to his location?"

"That depends, sir."

There was a moment of silence, and she heard the Assistant Director's heavy sigh on the other end of the phone, crackling in her ear.

"Yes?" he asked finally, clearly already aware of where this was going.

"There are a lot of people who want to find him, too," she said slowly. "For very different reasons...You were meeting with one of them before I left."

"She's been brought up to speed."

"Really?"

"I'd rather not repeat that experience again," her superior responded in a clipped tone. "As hard as it was for her to initially comprehend, Diane Fowler has happily turned this investigation over to our team...partially because she doesn't understand half of it, but mostly because she'd rather not be tasked with explaining the situation to those she reports to."

_Mr. President, one of our Most Wanted thought he was a ghost for the last 25 years..._

"Did you find him, Keen?" Cooper's voice was softer, more hopeful and she bit her lip for the moment where she weighed telling him the truth.

"Yes," she told him with a heavy exhale. "He's safe, sir. We're having his caretakers questioned right now, but I think Dembe can have it arranged if you'd like our team to have a turn."

"Caretakers...Keen, is he-"

"-He's gotten a pretty thorough medical exam, and they're just waiting on blood tests to come back, but right now it looks like his body is fine. But sir, he's…." Liz felt her throat grow tight, and she swallowed before continuing. "I have tried everything I can think of to wake him up. And he's...I don't know how much longer we've got."

She could feel him slipping away from her. It was slow, which was making it more tortuous. After their last attempt to have Liz literally shock him awake didn't work and only caused his heart rate to grow erratic for a brief period, Liz had grabbed Dembe by the shoulders and begged him to think of something, someone who could help.

"Is there anyone else who can call a spirit back? Maybe it needs to be someone else," she'd said, and he was gone again, with a promise to return with someone, leaving her to keep watch over their friend.

Cooper was quiet again on the other end of the phone. "I'll see...we'll…" he sighed, defeated already and her stomach turned at the noise. "I'll see if we can come up with some ideas here and call you back."

Liz hung up the phone and placed it back on the bedside table before rising and sitting on the edge of the bed beside the prone man, drawing his hand into her lap. She leaned back against the headboard and watched him.

"You really don't get a choice in this, Red," she told him quietly, her thumb brushing over his. "You have to wake up."

She wanted to know what it was like, to wake up beside him. She wanted to watch him live the life he'd dreamed of, had been so desperate to have, to share it with him. She wanted to fall asleep to the sound of this steady breathing beside her.

Liz leaned down and pressed a kiss to the top of his head, running a hand over his closely clipped scalp...oh man, he was going to be _pissed_ when he woke up and found out he was already balding.

"Can you still sense him?"

Liz grabbed her gun and whirled on the small dark-clad figure in the doorway. The woman was older, dressed all in black save for a string of white pearls at her neck and the camel coat on top of the outfit. She had a severe sort of face, with lips puckered in what appeared to be distaste, and shrewd eyes behind square frame glasses.

The woman made a lazy sort of wave in her direction and the gun was suddenly knocked out of Liz's grip and sent across the room.

"Focus, girl," the woman chided Liz, who angrily stood up from the bed just as Dembe appeared in the doorway beside the stranger.

"Liz, this is Kate Kaplan," he explained quickly, already aware of the tension in the room. "She's a witch and can help us."

Kaplan noticed her disbelief, despite her best effort to smother the surprise on her face. "What, you two can see the dead, Raymond can move things with his mind, but _witches_ are where you draw the line?" she asked her, barely pausing before continuing to speak. "We don't have much time if we're going to get him back."

Out of her large handbag, the woman withdrew an old, leather book with rough-edged pages and put it on the edge of the bed. Liz could smell it, musty and decaying and _something else_ , from where she stood.

"What is this?" she asked while reaching for the book, curiosity piqued.

The older woman slapped her hand away. "Something very old and very powerful, and not for you to touch," she chided, and then proceeded to pull off her coat off and drape it over the hand grip at the foot of the bed. "Now go sit down so we can get our boy back."

Kaplan opened the book, found whatever it was she was looking for, and cast a glance over the edge of her glasses at Liz where she sat, a look that pinned her to her seat, before turning fully towards her.

The witch stood with her hands folded over one another against her stomach and watched her for a moment, as if looking for something. Dembe shifted nervously at the door, and Liz looked to the stranger expectantly.

"Whatever it is, do it."

"If we do this, you will be going somewhere the living are never meant to go...it changes a person, leaves its mark. Might not let you go at all. So before we start, dearie, I need you to think long and hard about this - is he worth it to you? Is he worth the risk?"

"Yes," she answered, without hesitation and full confidence, never more certain of anything in her life. "Yes he is. Now help me get him back."

Kaplan pulled an old iPod out of her bag, and a small speaker, and set them on the bed. She squinted down at the thing, having to lift her glasses to read its screen and Liz was at the end of her patience, ready to burst, when soft, soothing music started to play on the speakers.

"Got to get you to relax _somehow_ ," the woman muttered, and then began to talk Liz through counting backwards in a surprisingly soothing voice, through deep breaths, before starting to speak in a language Liz didn't understand, and for a half second, she balked, but allowed herself to follow the instructions and -

It was strange - it wasn't sudden, but if there was any way Liz would describe it, she'd say she was smoke, hazy and drifting, and came to find herself standing in a hallway, dark and winding.

There was in incredible sense of _wrongness_ to the space, and she had to keep reminding herself why she was there, who she was there for.

"Raymond?" she called out, and focused on the pull towards him to guide her.

She followed the twisting hallway to the left, swallowing down the rising terror that left her wanting to scream out.

The doors that randomly dotted the hallways were inky black patches in the dark hallway. Some had light beneath them. Some did not. She wouldn't stop in front of any of them; some gut-level knowledge, etched deep in her bones and primal, told her they were waiting on the other side. Waiting and watching. Waiting and watching and pacing.

She didn't know who _they_ were but they terrified her, shaking her the very same way memories of the fire did.

She picked up the speed of her step when she caught sight of a shadow passing inside one of the rooms, just on the other side of the door where the milky green light eked onto the floor

Liz started to sprint when she heard the sickly creek of one of the doors somewhere behind her open.

Her skin prickled with the sense of _wrongness_ , an understanding she should not be in this place. For all her time around the dead, this was a place she should never have tried to enter.

_Then give him back_ , she thought, as if the space could hear her thoughts.

Apparently it could. It grew colder and she continued to run, trying to keep a hold on her connection to Red. There was no way to tell where she was, or how far she'd gotten - for all she knew, the hallway was a circle - but there was no way she was going to stop. Not with them waiting. Waiting and watching. Waiting and watching and pacing. They wanted her to stop. They were waiting for her to stop. They all stopped, eventually. In time she would st-

Someone grabbed her arm, and immediately, she whirled around and hoped that a punch to the throat and a knee to the groin would have the same effect on this plane of existence as it did normally.

The grunt that came from her attacker emerged from the person beginning to say her name, and she immediately realized her mistake.

Even as he remained doubled over, she slipped her arms around his neck, and Ray instinctively wrapped his own around her waist, curling somehow into her and then tightening, almost desperately.

Liz squatted on the floor beside him, and reveled in the feeling of his fingers on her face as they traced her cheekbones delicately.

"Sweetheart," he uttered, grief so openly on display it made her chest hurt, "what happened to you? You shouldn't be here, I never wanted-"

She couldn't stand seeing him so shattered, thinking she'd died.

"Neither should you, apparently," she said firmly, wrapping his wrists in her grip and pulling his hands away from her face so he would look at her, albeit with eyebrows knitted in confusion. "Red, you're not dead."

Liz gave his hands a squeeze and repeated her words. "You're not dead, Garrick wasn't lying...we found you, but there isn't a lot of time. If you don't come back with-"

"-Oh God Lizzie, _no_ ," he suddenly said, dismay etched into his features. "Please don't tell me Kate sent you-"

"-Last I checked we can't exactly lie to each other, so that's not possible," she replied, jumping a bit too soon in her response to his unfinished request, and softened her voice. "Of course I came for you. I would never leave you here."

And in that moment, she knew this was where she was supposed to be, as strange as that sounded. Whatever happened, she was happy she was here with him.

But she wanted to see him open his eyes, to have a chance at a life with him.

"Come on. We're getting out of here," she announced, and they stood up.

Of course, once they were standing again, it was very clear that neither had an idea how to get out. It wasn't like Liz had some kind of line to pull on and reel them back in...Kaplan certainly made it seem like this was a place most avoided…

"Can't blame them," Red responded beside her, despite her never voicing her thoughts.

They walked a little more quickly, hand in hand as they tried to find _something_ that was an exit. As time passed, Liz found her steps slowing. The man beside her gave her a concerned look.

"Something's wrong," he stated, instead of asking, and Liz nodded.

Something was definitely wrong; until now, she'd been able to sense her body back in the chair, was planning that if nothing else, she could use that as some kind of connection to get them back.

It was gone.

"We have to try anyway," she said.

A door opened with a squeak, like some sick animal, and icy panic filled her gut.

" _Run_!" Red shouted, and they took off, speeding down the hall.

It sounded like the slapping, tapping noise of a barefoot child or an animal behind them, and then more than one of whatever it was, and a voice in Liz's head told her _don't look don't look whatever you do just don't_.

"There!"

They had rounded a corner, a hard one unlike anything else they've passed, and the door was grey, and hung at a normal angle. It had the appearance of a normal, everyday door, and Liz felt her tiring shoulders sag with relief as they made for it.

"Oh thank god," she panted, half-laughing.

The metal of the doorknob was cool under her touch, but not repulsively so. She took it as a good sign.

"Wait."

Liz slid her gaze over to him from the doorknob in her hand, barely able to wait for whatever it was he was going to say. There wasn't time for this - they needed to _go_. It wasn't like he could have left something important behind…

But he was about to, she suddenly realized, her leap of logic aided by her connection to him and his thoughts.

"Oh God, no." Liz pulled her hand from the door like it had burned her, and stepped away from it. "No. _No_."

She continued to repeat the word even as the man beside her said her name like a plea, trying to comfort her.

If she walked back through that doorway with the love of her life in tow, he was going to wake up without any knowledge of her, or their friends, or their work.

Raymond Reddington was not able to see the dead before he ended up in a coma. He'd probably wake up being able to see them now, but the last two and a half decades would be wiped from his memory.

"I"m not...I didn't come this far to get you back just to let you go...no "

He slid his arms around her waist and shoulders, and she clung to him, suddenly more furious than she could ever remember, and unsure who she could lash out at for this.

They weren't waiting or watching or pacing anymore. They were _coming._ Liz and Red needed to move now. They were almost to the corner of the hallway now, and they'd see whatever it was in just a moment.

"You better come back to me, Raymond Reddington," she warned him, voice a fierce whisper in his ear as they held on to one another.

"We've beaten all the odds so far…" he trailed off, pulling back just enough to give her face one of those lasting looks, like he was trying to ingrain her into his memories in these fleeting seconds. If there was anyone who could be an exception to this rule, it would be him, and she had to hold onto that belief.

She kissed him, because seconds were precious, and she had no idea what was going to happen once they went through this door.

"I have you," she whispered, leaning her forehead against his, even as she wrenched the door open behind them. It took a lot of effort, made more difficult by the heavy exhaustion that was leeching the energy out of her. "And you have me."

He gave their joined hands a quick squeeze. "That's all that matters," he finished.

Her whole body shook with fear and fatigue as she stepped back into the empty space beyond the door, and she lifted her head to tell him one more time that she loved him as they stepped through, hoping it would make a difference.

But the hallway was shaking and a shrieking, savage scream was racing its way towards them, so Liz pulled with all of her might and walked through the space that had been a doorway and it was dark so dark did they pick wrong were they too late she could still feel him, both his hand in her hand and the piece of him that resided in her - _wait for me Lizzie_ \- deep in her chest a part of her heart beating beat beat beat beep beep beep beep-

Liz sat up and arched forward, taking air into her lungs in a rough gasp, moving so forcefully the chair slid out from her jackknifing body and she tumbled onto the floor.

The room was chaos.

"You're back, you made it," Dembe was assuring her, somewhere behind her and trying to help her off of the floor all while not touching her, but his voice was lost in the din of medical equipment emitting warning noises and the voice in her head that was screaming that _something wasn't right_.

She reached out for the rail of Raymond's bed, but thought better of it when she realized she probably had little control at the moment over her ability, and if that equipment was still keeping him alive, she had to rein herself in to make sure she didn't unintentionally damage any of it or him.

"Is he going to be okay?" she asked, voice hoarse, addressing any of the rapidly moving people in scrubs, but they were working furiously over Red, calling out drugs and orders for more and Liz pushed herself back up and into her chair, only then realizing there were EKG leads on her chest and her shirt had been unbuttoned.

"You gave us a good scare there, kiddo," Kaplan explained from her spot by the window, where she stood, arms crossed and her purse in the crook of her elbow, her eyes never leaving Reddington's form. "Stopped breathing. Had to get a little nasty to make them leave you be."

"Is he going to be okay?" Liz repeated, looking from Kaplan to Dembe and their twin expressions of worry.

Adrenaline was rattling through her veins, and her heart was in her throat. The medical staff continued to try to work, battling the long tone emitted from the heart monitor.

Flatline. Raymond was dying.

Liz did the only thing she could think of.

She lunged out of her chair, grabbing hold of his wrist despite the shouts to stop. She couldn't lose him, not again, not ever.

Raymond Reddington's eyes flew open.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who has continued to read this fic! I can't believe this was supposed to be a week-long, short fic a year ago. It's grown and morphed, and I appreciate everyone who has taken the time to read it as it has evolved.

**T** he beep of the monitor was steady. His chest rose and fell in a slow but constant rhythm.

Liz felt her own breath catch when she heard Raymond's. She paused at the door, not wanting to interrupt his needed sleep.

And she didn't want him to wake up.

She didn't hear the nurse come up behind her - damn those sneakers. He moved past her into the room with a laptop on a cart.

"There's a chair," he gestured, busily moving from the monitor to check on the bags on the IV pole. "He's no longer twilighted, so he should be more oriented when he wakes up."

Hope had her smiling nervously.

He tapped away on the laptop, recording vitals. "Blood tests are coming back pretty solid - the doc will go over them with you but I can tell you now, his HDL is a little high, so we're going to have to watch his cholesterol levels."

Liz stifled her laugh of disbelief. Guess that global food tasting tour was going to have to go slow, then. First the hair, now this. She'd never hear the end of it.

And she was happy about it.

He'd be back in an hour, the nurse told her, but she should feel free to use the call bell before then if necessary - and wheeled the cart back out.

Which left Liz with Ray, and she was fine with that. Dembe was handling some business but would check in later. Mr. Kaplan had said she'd stop by when he was awake enough to remember her instigating him.

It had been a tough few days, getting him stabilized.

There was nothing to do but wait and hope, and hungrily drink in the sight of him in the bed. Unable to stop herself, she leaned forward and took his hand. She spent a small eternity sitting there, watching him for so long for signs he was waking that when he finally did, she initially thought she was imagining it.

He took a sharp breath and opened his eyes with sluggish blinks.

Liz felt her stomach flip, and she gave him the brightest grin she could. "Hi," she greeted him and gave his hand a squeeze.

Blue-green eyes took her in, then swept around the room. He swallowed several times, wet his lips before speaking. "Where...where am I?"

She blinked back the tears and struggled against the tightness in her throat, happiness overwhelming her. "You're in a safe house. You're okay." She ran the edge of her thumb over his, giving him a reassuring grin. "We're okay."

Ray grew still, watching her for a moment. It wasn't the fond sort of 'committing the moment to memory' type of glance she was accustomed to.

Her stomach plummeted as he drew his hand out of her grip, and her hope shattered.

"You don't...you don't remember me, do you?" she asked, already aware of the answer.

Of all the ways he could have responded, she'd never anticipated how much it would _hurt_ , in this situation, when he shook his head and shrugged. The apology that accompanied it wasn't callous, it just lacked the sympathy that should have been there.

"Okay," she found herself saying. She sat back in her seat and took a deep breath, and repeated it. Maybe he needed more time. Maybe he needed some coaxing. There wasn't a damn thing this man had ever done by the rulebook - why would a miraculous return from the assumed dead be the same?

"What's the last thing you remember?"

And then things were slipping slipping slipping out of her fingers, and the heart monitor was shrieking, the nurse was rushing in, and before she knew it Dembe was following after her as she made it into the bathroom down the hall before she hunched over the toilet.

_**Seven Months Later** _

**T** he clock kept ticking away in the corner of the room. After so many sessions in the room, Liz could barely contain the desire to zap the thing.

She kind of hated the room. Dr. Crowe was nice, but she was clueless.

Couldn't be helped.

Liz took a deep breath, focused on not setting the shredded tissue in her hands on fire with an electric spark - her latest trick - and waited out Crowe, who was preparing some work-ordered, therapist bullshit in an overly calm voice.

Whatever. She decided to pull off the emotional bandaid.

"It's been seven months and...I thought it would be easier by now," she admitted quietly "I thought it would hurt, but I thought it would be a little easier...You would think, with all the classes I took, the papers I wrote, I'd have a better understanding of grief, that it wouldn't take me by surprise like this."

"We're all human, Elizabeth. Grief is a journey we all take at some point, but no matter how hard we try to be prepared, we never really are." Crowe leaned forward, hands clasped together. "You mentioned dreams the last time we talked...Are you still having those dreams?"

Liz couldn't help but suck in a quick breath at the instant recall - _His hands on her again, lips on her skin and "Wait for me" before she wakes up alone. Always. Every time._

She had to clear her throat before answering. "Yes."

"If they're disruptive to your sleeping patterns, perhaps we should explore-"

_\- His hands and lips and "Wait for me" -_

"-No," she said, too sharply. "No. They're...They're comforting. They're fine. _I'm_ fine."

Crowe didn't believe her, but looked on with clinical detachment masking pity. Liz knew the look. She'd practiced it and worn it herself.

"I know it's hard to see it right now, Elizabeth," the other woman said gently, "but you're young - you have your whole life ahead of you. You should live as much as you can. Experience it. Enjoy it."

" _I'd want to feel the surge as ten racehorses go thundering by. A meal in Paris, at L'Ambroisie, at the Place des Vosges. I want another bottle of wine. And then another. I want the warmth of a woman and-"_

"Your husband would have wanted that for you."

Liz managed a grimace masked as an appreciative, thin-lipped smile and collected her things, happy the appointment was over.

She'd wanted to laugh in the woman's face. Her husband would have wanted something very different for her. Her husband wanted to kidnap her and take her who knew where. Her husband had been sent into her life to steal her from it.

Liz took in a breath of chilled, conditioned air before pushing on the glass door and walking out onto the street, getting all but smacked in the face by the sticky summer DC weather. Seasonally, totally wrong for the work she did every day, but ghosts didn't stop haunting people or committing crimes just because Autumn was over.

Today wasn't going to be a good day.

That tugging was back, flaring up in full force, and despite her best efforts to block it, his nervousness had bled through to her. By the time she got into the elevator at the Morgue, she was battling the nervy hum of fight-or-flight in her gut and legs alongside the draw to his proximity. The Morgue's elevator was always dimly lit and cool, fitting for its nickname, but she still felt nervous sweat dewing between her shoulders.

Cooper had been very accommodating, allowing her to use her lunch breaks for her therapy sessions instead of having to squeeze them in after work - he'd told her she _had_ to go, anyway. She imagined she was going to have to keep going, after today.

Aram and Meera were both waiting by the elevator when the doors opened on their floor.

"I know," she told them before either could say anything.

The tech analyst looked slightly relieved he didn't have to break the news.

"Cooper needs a volunteer for a surveillance assignment. I was planning on offering. We leave in 15."

Liz gave Meera an appreciative nod. "Sounds great. Count me in."

When Liz pivoted to thank Aram, so he could return to his work, he was a moment too slow hiding the device in his hand.

Aram immediately started to defend himself. "I just-"

"I"m fine."

"We knew if something like this happened, it might trigger you to-"

"I'm _fine_ ," she cut him off, firmly, but they both looked down at the EMF detector as its spike caused it to beep. At the same time, a spectral coworker, sorting through mail, unconsciously drifted closer to Liz on his trip past.

Ghost catnip.

She switched tactics. "I'll be out of here in 15."

Aram didn't look convinced, instead walked away muttering about 'rainboots', and Liz stalked off to her office.

_He_ was up in Cooper's office, she knew that much. Just one metal staircase and a landing away from her. Fine. All she had to do was avoid that area and fight the urge to look up at the partially closed blinds, ignoring the fact that he was looking through them at her right now.

Easier said than done.

She'd barely started to sort through her email - Aram had already switched her keyboard for a silicone covered one, in hopes of minimizing technology replacement costs, the sneaky nerd - when Cooper's voice sounded loud and clear in her head that the team was to meet in the bullpen.

Aram had gotten a black pair of crocs, and they were mostly concealed by his pant legs, but he was definitely wearing them and keeping his distance from Liz. Meera, however, edged just slightly closer to her. Ressler looked like he was grinding his teeth into dust.

The door to Cooper's office opened and the Assistant Director stepped out, immediately followed by another man.

He looked much better than the last time she'd seen him. Less pale. Less sickly. Then again, it had been months. Regardless, there was something about the way he held himself that was _off_ , something about the strict, stiff posture that reminded her scarily of Ressler.

Cooper put a hand on Raymond Reddington's shoulder and cleared his throat to begin extremely unnecessary introductions.

As Cooper spoke, Reddington's eyes scanned their group. His gaze fell on Liz, and she swallowed, forcing herself to keep her gaze steady.

Their superior explained that Raymond Reddington was joining their team on an ongoing basis, continuing the charade as the concierge of crime. She knew what that meant, she realized with a sinking feeling.

She and Dembe were going to have to help him with maintaining his cover, 24/7.

A few feet away from her, Aram's EMF detector went haywire.

**I** t wasn't long before Liz was inevitably called into Cooper's office, and she took the seat beside Raymond Reddington simply because there wasn't another chair available. Reddington spared a glance in her direction, which she ignored, and sat a little straighter in her chair, focused on her boss.

The AD took a fortifying breath before launching into his declaration. "You both have your reservations about this, I don't have to be able read minds to know your thoughts - which you're both pretty much shouting, by the way," he told them, looking from one person to the other. "But I've given this a lot of thought, and while we've had some success with the names on the flashdrive you found, Keen, Ray's fame in the criminal world could be of great use to us, a real benefit to this team's mission."

Part of Liz still wished she'd never handed the damn thing over, but when she'd received the call that her apartment had been broken into and Hudson was initially missing, things had become a blur. First Red, then Hudson. She was a wreck when she finally had given up in New York and returned to DC.

When her neighbor brought him back over, explaining that he'd found the dog in the parking lot, Liz had scooped Hudson up and cried into his fur for what had seemed like hours. She'd sat with her back against the doorway of her living room and looked at the chaos of her overturned apartment, holding Hudson close to her for a long time.

Her fingers felt the foreign object on Hudson's collar's jumpring first, and when she looked at the tag, she found a small flashdrive had been added. It was the size of a penny.

Dembe came as quickly as he could when she'd called him, and they'd taken the flashdrive to one of Red's trusted tech geeks. The files had all been saved to the drive two weeks before Garrick's break in, and in addition to links to various caches across the internet with some of his gathered intel, there'd been a simple word document on the drive.

Red had hidden his most important secrets with their dog.

Handing a copy over to Cooper had seemed the best course of action at the time, but now…

Now she looked over and saw the printout of that word document in Raymond Reddington's hands, and wanted to rip it away from him. The man beside her was wearing his skin, spoke with his voice, and from her limited experience, shared mannerisms with the ghost, but he wasn't the same person. Seven months of distance, dreams, tears, and therapy, and she'd compressed her grief and anger into conviction.

This was Red's life's work, no pun intended. Liz would do everything she could to see it through.

She was going to get the love of her life back, one way or another.

In the meantime, she had the Blacklist.

* * *

 

Part 2's 8track mix has been posted - [you can listen to it here](http://8tracks.com/thursdayschild/here-and-gone).


	16. Chapter 16

_**Months Ago** _

_**I**_ _t was an unassuming three-story home, in a neighborhood full of them. A nice neighborhood where people jogged with headphones in, fully confident that the only threat to their safety were the drivers who would avoid them. Front doors with big, perfectly cheerful wreaths were left ajar behind unlocked glass ones. The homes were all decorated for the upcoming holidays with boughs of greenery and warm white lights - tasteful and balanced. The snow was perfect, white and pristine, and the driveways all had nice, clean lines from expensive snowblowers._

_Liz had made a point of requesting that the house she was now parked in in front of was decorated to match the rest of the homes. There was even a tree set up, too, decorated with generic ornaments and white lights. She didn't want him not to have that._

_She was ready to take it all down and start over if he wanted it. Go out and buy one from one of those lots, let him haggle over the price, Dembe would help them lash it to the roof of the Range Rover and then spend a small fortune on ornaments._

_If Raymond Reddington regained his memories for their first Christmas 'together', she'd put the Rockefeller Center's tree to shame._

_It all depended on him, though._

_In her car in front of the house, Liz pulled the chain out from within her scarf, coat, and other layers of clothing, and kissed it._

" _Come on, Ray," she whispered before tucking it back away safely against her heart and exiting her car._

_Unless you were sensitive to it, and knew to feel for it, you couldn't even sense the low-energy EMF pump Aram had created to act as 'ghost repellant' for the safe house. She tested it and could feel it was still in place and working. Good._

_The burly guard who let her into the house was dressed casually, but held himself erect and alert, and she knew he was armed to the teeth._

" _M'am," he greeted her with a respectful nod. She and Dembe were treated as employers by Reddington's detail, which was_ still _weird for her._

_Liz dipped her head and smiled as she stepped past him into the warmth of the foyer. He followed behind her after securing the door._

" _Nothing to report for suspicious activity, aside from the lost pizza kid earlier this week. Background checked out clean, we had him followed for the next few weeks, his phones tapped, and computer hacked as a precaution with nothing suspicious taking place. Sorry for the false alarm, m'am."_

_That was a 10 at night phone call she hoped never to get again, but she was glad they erred on the side of caution. Poor delivery kid. "Call me Liz. And that kind of diligence is appreciated."_

_The TV was on quietly in the living room, and there were more sounds from the kitchen at the back of the house. It sounded like Boccelli. That was where Lorenzo, one of the two nurses she'd hired, probably was._

" _Is he going for those walks?" she asked quietly, aware the door to the master suite at the top of the staircase was open, as she unwound her scarf and stripped off her coat, hat and gloves. Liz deposited them on the round table at the center of the foyer before heading back, knowing Chip would follow her._

" _Yes, m'a-Liz," he corrected himself sheepishly, and she grinned at the color in the man's cheeks. "With a lot of complaints. He's opting for the treadmill more, though. Very diligent with his PT."_

_Before they moved fully into the kitchen. She stopped and turned around to face the guard. "And you and Carol Ann?"_

_The man's cheeks darkened further and cleared his throat. "Coffee on our day off at the end of the week."_

_She punched him in the arm, smiling cheekily, before entering the kitchen. As long as the guard and the nurse were keeping their relationship from affecting their work, she would cheer them both on._

_Lorenzo was a no-nonsense Italian nurse with the ability to accelerate healing, who seemed to enjoy butting heads with his patient. With little to update her on - their check in day had been yesterday, with nothing to report, she greeted him quickly before heading up the back staircase with more buoyant confidence than she actually felt._

_They'd only moved Raymond to the new location a few weeks ago, once he was healthy enough for the move, and he seemed completely dedicated to regaining his health and strength. He believed the guards, medical team, and other employees were in his employ, and she was willing to keep it that way for the time being if it bought his cooperation._

_Her heeled boots sunk into the thick carpet as she swallowed nervously and came to stop in front of his bedroom door._

_He was sitting in the large, plump recliner beside his bed. The TV was on the news - CNN she noticed - and dozens of papers were scattered on the edge of the bed, with some folded and discarded on the floor._

_He looked better. Healthier._

_She knocked on the doorframe to get his attention. His gaze lifted from the newsprint, regarding her with no real recognition._

_Suddenly, Liz was hit with a sense of nerves. "Hello," she greeted him lamely._

" _Hello," he echoed, eyes flitting over her, hesitating only slightly at the spot where she kept her badge._

" _I wanted to see how you were doing. May I come in?"_

_He gestured to the chair next to his, and she crossed over to it but remained standing._

_It was clear he was trying to place her, and she held herself very still for his scrutiny._

_Was he aware of the hum between them like she was?_

" _You were there when I woke up," Reddington stated abruptly, and she swallowed despair to nod curtly. "That was your house, correct?"_

_Liz felt herself put on that old, unused clinically polite smile, back from her days before she was led to the J. Edgar Hoover Building and her life changed forever. It used to buy her time when she studied a subject, considered tactics. She tried to figure out the best way to frame her answer, but it wasn't like she had much of a choice - she'd have to tell him the truth. "No, it was your's. You have a lot of places like that."_

_Have or had? She wasn't sure what to say, how to frame it in her mind. Part of her couldn't bear to accept things as they were and put their precious interactions in the past. Raymond Reddington, the one she knew and loved, was going to come back to her. She had to have faith in that._

_She could humor this stranger in his body for the time being, until he put himself back together._

_He was studying her closely, looking for something again that she wasn't sure of. Then again, she too was waiting for a sign of the ghost she knew so well._

" _Milhoan. Elizabeth Milhoan Keen, right?"_

_He better have remembered it, because at one point during the shouting and chaos after he woke up, he'd demanded to see her badge, and she'd handed it over to him. Dembe had had to go in and retrieve it before she'd left to head back to DC._

_Liz felt sick to her stomach. Here it came, the moment this new version of him labelled her his friend's daughter; categorizing her like that seemed so wrong, so small in the grander scheme of what they were to one another. They'd already moved past that hurdle once and here it was again, to trip them and make them stumble this time._

" _Yes," she affirmed._

" _You're not…" he paused, a look like horror and fascination blooming on his face, as he tilted his head on an angle. He laughed, and it was a laugh at himself. "You wouldn't be related to Sam Milhoan, would you?"_

_Liz sat down in the chair closest to the recliner as she exhaled heavily._

" _I am. He adopted me after...Raymond, you said you remembered the fire, correct?"_

_His eyebrows were knitted together and there was a look of concern on his face as he tried to put the pieces together._

_She leaned forward, covering his hand with her own. "That was me. You saved my life that night. You saved me from that fire."_

_He focused on their point of contact for a long, undecipherable moment, and Liz, rejection churning in her gut, retracted her hand back to her lap. "I know this is a lot to take in for y-"_

" _You think?" he asked caustically. And Liz recoiled, just about finished with the conversation, and the anger building in her chest._

_The only thing that stopped her from leaving was the fact that she realized it wasn't her own, and it wasn't fully directed at her. There was...there was something like disgust in there. What could have - was he ashamed of seeing her as a woman? Of being attracted to her?_

_She rushed to reassure him his feelings were valid and she knew about them, or at least try to keep him from feeling embarrassed._

" _Raymond, you need to know, our connection goes beyond that fire, it's...we've known one another for a very long time," she tried to explain to him, to smile warmly at him, make him feel the love she felt for him. "You and I are very close, and my father-"_

" _-How is he?" he cut her off, grasping at the one thing he recognized from what she was talking about and shutting down any talk of their connection. His old friend. Cooper was the only one up until today who had been visiting with him, but the Assistant Director had assured her he'd not told the man about his connection to Liz, feeling it was far too personal for him to divulge._

_He'd left out the part where he neglected to tell Raymond about Sam's death._

_Her voice was quiet. "I'm so sorry. He...he passed away a few months," she sucked in a breath while shaking her head before correcting herself - it didn't seem that long at all to her. "About a year ago," she amended._

_He looked at the newspapers on the floor, and she watched the way his jaw moved and he swallowed._

_Seeing the hurt on his face made Liz want to reach out to him, but his reaction at her last attempt to do so kept her from acting on the urge. Seeing him like that, without being able to comfort him, was difficult._

" _How?" he asked in a small voice, looking so lost, so overwhelmed._

_No use mincing words. "Cancer. End stage lung cancer. We - you came with me when he was in the hospital, that last time. You got to say goodbye," she assured him, hoping it helped._

" _Not much of a comfort, when you don't remember it," he muttered, and he ran his nail over the crease of one of the papers and she noticed the title. The paper hadn't been in print in years. He must have asked Chip to find him old copies so he could catch up on the world he missed._

_For the entire duration of the drive, she'd thought of a thousand things to say to him, to ask him; ways to try to prod his memory. Somehow being confronted with the miserable man before her, those plans had disappeared immediately._

_She visually searched around the room for something to talk to him about, to prolong the visit and move to a lighter subject, to distract him, but she noticed the lack of reflection over the bathroom sink through the open door into the space, and grew immediately alarmed._

_None of the team had mentioned anything to her._

" _Raymond, what happened to your mirror?" she asked urgently, afraid of what his answer was going to be. Her gaze dropped to his wrists for only half a second, but he caught it and she watched his jaw tighten. His response was clipped._

" _It br-I punched it."_

_Reddington looked down, shocked, as if he would have been able to see what had caused him to tell the truth, and inhaled sharply. A heartbeat later, his gaze snapped up and fixed on her, and his anger prickled in her chest._

" _How the hell did you do that?" he demanded, and she countered as she would have months ago without thinking._

" _Why did you break-"_

" _-How the fuck did you do that?" Red was sitting up completely now, ramrod straight in his chair, on the verge of standing. Any more outbursts and Lorenzo was going to throw her out for instigating his patient, she was sure of it. Any angrier and managing her ability was going to be hard._

" _It's not something I can control," she rushed to explain, "It's not my ability. It's...when you and I are around one another this-it's not something either of us can control. We both tried everything when we realized it, but nothing works. I'm sorry. I'll try to be more considerate of it," she added, sincerely._

_He relaxed slightly, paler than she liked to see after his shouting, and eyed her warily. No, it definitely wasn't an answer he liked, and he didn't trust it, and didn't trust her._

" _I'd like to know why you broke the mirror, if you wouldn't mind telling me," she stated, laying the words out delicately between them, hoping they could help to start to bridge the gap between them._

 _Her words were met with a long, doubtful stare. "You_ really _want to know?"_

" _Yes!" she huffed. "And not out of guilt, or duty, or...or obligation to my father. You may not remember anything, but I care about you."_

_The declaration seemed to shock him back into silence, as if what she had said couldn't possibly be true. If anything, he looked embarrassed and uncomfortable because of her words. She tamped down her own internal dismay and continued._

" _So tell me why you punched your mirror. Please," she amended._

_Her previous words seemed to linger between them, vulnerable and bare, and she wanted to take them back. She shouldn't have said it outloud._

_Next to her, Reddington wrestled with a storm of anger and helplessness, and more of that self-hate she felt before._

" _This is me," he finally declared. "I look in the mirror I just can't believe this is me. That this...this is my body. I woke up like this, in this...the last thing I remembered was being young, and strong, and…" he sagged into his seat and wiped at his face with his hand angrily, then looked at the hand with something like contempt. "Not this."_

 _Yes, he was older. Yes, there were parts of him that were softer than they were before - but he had been bed bound and predominantly in a coma the last few years. But there was still something handsome about his face. His lips were still soft, still looking to be kissed. She still wanted to glide a thumb over his cheekbones. She wanted to watch those thick, gold eyelashes as he slept. He was distinguished. He'd aged in a way that she had to imagine the_ real _him would be happy with, proud of even._

 _She still desired him, and she felt some sort of protective anger for him, for his body, for the man she loved. For god's sake, he was alive and to her, that was_ beautiful _._

" _Well I think you look good for your age," she replied before she even thought about it, remembering the words had made him laugh so much the first time she'd uttered them. There was no recognition on his face this time, however, and if anything, he looked more upset._

_The glass of water on the small bedside table shuddered, just at the corner of her vision, and his anger flared to white hot. He leaned his head against the back of the seat, and with a heavy exhale, ran a hand over his knitted brow. "Get out."_

_Her eyes widened. "What?"_

" _Get. Out," he ground out again. When she made no move to adhere to the command, he opened his eyes and fixed her with a serious look._

" _Leave now, or I'll call the nurse and have whatever security team is lurking around here remove you. And I'll tell Cooper about his agent's lack of decorum during our meeting."_

" _Lack of dec…" Liz started to repeat his words with disbelief, but trailed off. He thought she was teasing him._

_It struck her then, no matter what she said to him during the visit, he was never going to see her, nor himself for who he was. Her current tactics were never going to work._

" _Leave," he barked and turned away from her._

" _Fine," she flatly said, and collected her things before leaving the room without looking back._

_She started to descend the front staircase, and risked a glance back._

_Wrong move. He was watching her from the bedroom, eyes stern and cold._

_This wasn't the man she loved. This wasn't Raymond Reddington._

_She marched into the kitchen, shaking for multiple reasons. Both men looked up, alarmed._

" _You never told me about the mirror," she said, and they both immediately looked apologetic._

_Chip was the first to reply. "We told Mr. Zuma about it and he-"_

_Lorenzo cut him off. "He told us not to worry you with it. Said it would only upset you."_

" _Of course it would," she huffed. "But I still want to know."_

" _Yes m'am," Chip answered, and she was too tired to correct him._

_She didn't see any bandages on his knuckles. "Was he hurt?"_

_Lorenzo shook his head. "Carol cleaned him up and it was only a few scratches, but...it's something to be aware of."_

" _Let me know if it happens again."_

_The guard shrugged a little. "Kind of understandable, I think, with everything...Hell, I'd do the same in this situation."_

_Before Liz had a chance to answer, the nurse intervened. "I'll walk you out to your car," he said. "Steps are still icy."_

_Once they were out by her car, she squeezed the man's arm. "Just...just text me with updates, okay? I'm going to talk to Dembe about keeping secrets, but Reddington, he can't know. Don't tell him, but...I need to know he's alright."_

_The nurse nodded, "I was hired by Raymond Reddington for you in case of an emergency. As far as I see it, I take direction from you."_

" _Thank you, Lorenzo."_

_The nurse glanced up at the windows of the second floor and then back to her. He sighed, and his breath clouded before him._

" _He's lost, I think. He's lost and he's scared. He's called out your name in his sleep a couple of times...not that he knows it. Not that he remembers." Lorenzo opened the car door for her. "He's going to find his way home. I got a good feeling about it."_

_It was a lie. At least the last part was. She could tell in the way his eyes darted down. It was still a nice effort on the man's part to comfort her._

_She thanked him again before driving off, feeling chilled and brittle and so very lost as well._

**Now**

" **D** embe," Liz called, knocking on the door even harder. "I know you're in there."

No answer. The guy was scarily silent, so it wasn't like she was going to hear where he was in there. The lack of noise meant he was still sulking. Not like she could blame him, she'd done more than her share of it within the recent months.

When tomorrow was done, she was probably going to have a nice long sulk of her own. Hudson was going to get smothered with affection and she was going to take advantage of that Walgreens 2-for-1 deal on Friendly's ice cream pints.

She _had_ been willing to share with Dembe, knowing it was one of his weaknesses, but his current obstinate refusal to respond to her was going to mean no invitation for him.

"Don't answer the door," she said with counterfeit brightness. "I'll just eat your takeout order. Say goodbye to the egg rolls, they're the first to go."

There was the sound of several locks being opened, and Dembe swung the door open.

"You wouldn't."

Liz yanked the paper bag back to her side in a protective hug that could easily become the Heisman pose. "Try me."

The other medium let her in.

Liz grabbed a paper towel before depositing the bag on his counter to keep its soggy bottom from making a larger mess.

"Samar is in Brazil working on finding the group who held Red's body hostage all these years. How did you find me?" he asked while pulling the containers out and she started to randomly open drawers for utensils. He probably wouldn't be much help in the search department - as one of Red's many little hidey-holes, it had a fully stocked kitchen, but the place was barely touched, meaning Dembe had probably just dropped his bags in here recently.

"New trick," she answered, finally finding the right drawer. She turned and looked at him, the forced cheerfulness and business disappearing. "Sorry, that was a lie. I've had Aram tracking delivery's from Good Luck Chinese, since I know it's your favorite. This one had a big tip added since it's out of their usual delivery area, combined with the fact that this apartment has been owned by the same guy for 10 years but the electricity bill was practically nothing, so I took a chance."

It wasn't exactly a novelty anymore, but it still was a shock to herself when she did lie. Then, she typically remembered the person who triggered that inability was gone, but not really, and…

Well, she'd have to get back into the habit of being careful of how she phrased her answers again.

She handed over the forks and all the spoons she could find, shutting the drawer with her hip and leaning against the counter. "You've been gone for a bit," she said seriously, crossing her arms.

Between Dembe and Reddington, she was finding more grey hairs than she liked.

With Reddington leaving the safe house several months ago and 'dismissing' the staff, she'd been left with no way of knowing what was going on with him, aside from the constant barrage of his emotions or the stray thought here or there. She'd had two different surveillance teams hired to follow him, even after Cooper had steered him back to another of the safehouses she set up for him. Liz still worried that some group, some person who had done business with someone using his body would find him before she could get to him.

Dembe nodded, and busied himself with the Chinese food containers. "It's a lot of work to keep Raymond's business thriving without him around."

She knew that very well; she too was doing her own part in trying to pick up some of the slack. She'd had to pretend to act as his translator in a few meetings. It was weird, particularly with that one woman who 'always had a sense of her own third eye', who would assure Liz she could see Red very well herself, compliment his choice of clothes that day, and then say 'hearing him darling, that is more difficult he speaks so softly'.

"It's why I'm here, actually," she said, taking a nervous breath. Dembe raised his eyebrows in curiosity, but continued to scoop fried rice onto his plate.

" _He's_ back at work, and Cooper thinks we should keep him in business."

The spoon hit the counter with a clatter. " _No_ ," said the man beside her adamantly. "Absolutely not."

"I get it, _trust me_ but-"

"-Raymond worked hard to create-"

"-I know-"

"-This is disrespectful-"

"-I _know_ -"

"-That man has no idea what-"

Liz raised her voice and rushed to cut him off again. "- _Exactly_. This man has no idea what the Raymond Reddington we know actually did. He doesn't have a clue." She gave him a meaningful look. "Maybe this is what's going to bring him back Dembe. Maybe putting him back in this role, he'll remember and it will...it'll unblock whatever part of his memory is missing right now. Maybe this will get him back to us."

She watched Dembe practically deflate. He turned to lean against the counter, hands on the edge and half bent over, to consider what she was saying.

Liz knew this was significant to Dembe, and that it affected him in an entirely different way than she was impacted. Not only was this his _life_ , Raymond had been his family, a brother. Maybe even a bit of a father-figure, as weird as that was.

This was the love of her life's work, but this was his family member's legacy.

"We'd be able to go after those names on the Blacklist, but gain more intel along the way, have an in where it could help - that's what he always planned. But we can't do this without you," she continued, hating that she using his sense of duty to get him to participate in this.

Dembe looked over his shoulder at her, a wary sort of expression on his face that she tried to lessen with a reassuring smile of her own.

"You don't have to answer me now," she told him, "but if you're in, just...just show up at the Morgue tomorrow at 11."

Trying to lighten the mood, she bumped his arm with her elbow.

"Now let's eat while you fill me in on what I've missed."

 **S** tomach full and shoulders a little lighter, Liz returned to her apartment later than she'd originally intended. It didn't take long for her to take care of Hudson, strip out of her clothes, and collapse into the bed for some shut eye.

It didn't feel like much time had passed before she woke from her sleep, called by the ghost who wasn't really there. Liz passed a hand through her hair and sat up, propping herself against the headboard.

Her skin felt like it was on fire, and cool metal of the ring on the chain around her neck was a startling contrast that made her jolt a little when she went to put a hand on her heart.

Already aware of what she was going to see when she looked at it, Liz snuck a glance at her alarm clock anyway and groaned. It was only another 12 minutes before her alarm was set to go off. Might was well get up now.

Her mood did not improve much by the time she got into work.

Reddington stood up front beside Cooper, arms crossed and facing the group, stance similar to Ressler's during a briefing, like he had a fucking clue about what was going on. He was dressed in a button down and slacks, and it was simple and similar enough to the outfit he'd been stuck in for two and half decades that Liz sort of jolted a bit when she came around the corner into the pen.

Reddington's eyes immediately zeroed in on her, and her late entrance. His expression uncannily reminded her of that one vice principal in high school who was convinced she had been behind the power surge that had fried the school's computer lab and he had it out for her for the rest of her time in the school. She had had to forge so many hallway passes. _So_ many.

Granted, she now realized it may actually have unintentionally been her, but the squinting? The lips pressed firmly together then pursed with distaste? Totally something she had been on the receiving end for before.

Of course there had been absolutely no sexual attraction to Mr. Majors, so this was a whole lot harder to ignore.

Forget sulking, she was going to be listening to Nina Simone tonight.

Cooper was giving an overview as to where they were with progress on hunting down names off the Blacklist. It was slow-going, but they were getting there.

Towards the end of the meeting, as everyone has begun to break off into smaller groups or go back to their desks to continue their work, Elizabeth looked up, happily surprised, to see Dembe standing in the doorway. Still talking to Meera, she gave him a big smile and a small wave. Redington noticed the interactions and looked over to the doorway before sidling up to Liz.

"That man was there when I woke up," he said in a low voice close to Liz's ear, interrupting the women. "I recognize him from surveillance photos."

Liz took a step to the side and gave him a long look; she had kept their interactions since his return the day prior as distanced and professional as possible. This was...well this was too informal for her.

"If you read your file, then you know that man is Dembe Zuma, and he saved your life. He's kept your business running these last few months. He's here to help us with this assignment," she told him evenly.

He gave her a curt nod, and headed in Dembe's direction, standing a little taller and putting out his hand for a handshake.

"Here we go," Liz sighed.

Meera asked her, "You think you ought to-"

"-On it."

Liz quickly made her way towards the two men, who were now talking quietly. Rather, Reddington was talking to Dembe, and Dembe was listening silently. The medium had not had much interaction with the man yet, and she was worried about how this would go.

Reddington didn't know better, she tried to remind herself. He clearly hadn't fully read the file. He'd never have spoken to him like this, like some newly hired employee, otherwise.

"We've got our work cut out for us. I don't know what was expected before, work-wise, but I'm telling you now, this is going to be exhaustive and dangerous….Are you up for that kind of challenge?"

Dembe appeared unphased by the question or comment but Liz wasn't going to sit by for this. Who the hell did he think he was?

"Dembe's totally aware of how much work is involved, more so than you right now, and he doesn't have to prove himself," she told him, speaking quickly. She started to address her friend, but didn't take her eyes off of Reddington. "Dembe, if you want, we can prep in my office, I've got a couple of the names from the list in there that I think are high priority."

Reddington stared at her, lips slightly parted with surprise. She stared stonily right back.

"Thank you, Elizabeth, but this is not necessary," Dembe said gently, placing a hand on her shoulder. It was an absolute sign of trust in her control of her ability and served as a reminder, because she instantly shut it down and tried to be more aware of it.

Reddington's low humming, constant anger suddenly spiked and stung in her chest, and she found he was looking at Dembe's hand on her shoulder.

Unbelievable.

"You and I need to talk," he announced suddenly, and turned on his heel, taking off briskly towards Cooper's office.

The man who usually resided in that space looked up from discussing something with Aram on a computer screen, watched his friend's journey, then made eye contact with the woman taking her time to follow.

 _I'm not going to taze him,_ she thought in the AD's direction. _Not unless he really really pisses me off._

She took a deep breath and climbed the stairs, reminding herself that he was scared, reminding herself that he was still trying to find his place in all of this. Reminding herself that the same guy now asking to speak to her in private was the same one who had thrown her out of his room the last time they'd spoken in private.

He was seated at Cooper's desk when she walked in. A power move. A way of reminding her of his place, she imagined. Theatrics.

Something's never changed, she guessed.

A small move of his hand and the door closed behind her.

She took the seat in front of the desk, and waited.

Reddington was still silent after the door shut, watching her. If he was trying to make her uncomfortable, he'd have to try harder.

His anger prickled under her skin. Good, she thought. She hoped he felt her own anger.

"You don't like me," he declared in the silence.

She leaned back, crossing her arms without a word.

The silent treatment. She'd always found it childish, but sometimes it had its purposes. It got people to fill in blanks, got people to fill in the silence when it made them uncomfortable. She made sure their connection was closed off on her end, too.

Not that it mattered, his own words were loud and clear in her head.

"You don't have to. You're just going to learn to work with me, because this operation is moving forward, like it or not."

Oh she did like it. Because the sooner they got the ball rolling with all of this, the sooner this asshole might be replaced with the Raymond Reddington she knew and loved. She settled her hands neatly in her lap, and waited.

It had the desired effect.

"I get that this is a difficult situation for both of us, but we'll get nowhere if we don't work to make it easier for the other. You need to figure out how to keep your thoughts to yourself...and the dreams. It's got to stop. It's not appropriate and it needs to stop. And stop looking at me like that."

She laughed in disbelief. "Like what?"

He fingers curled around the edge of the desk. "Like you're looking for someone and disappointed when I'm not him. You look...look absolutely gutted. I'm not him," he finished firmly.

"Oh trust me," Liz laughed darkly. "That's crystal clear." She stood up abruptly, and he half-rose from his chair.

"We're not done."

"We are for now. Use your abilities to try to keep me in this room in any way and I'll zap you," she told him matter-of-factly.

Clearly, he wasn't expecting her to not defer to him. She crossed the office and put her hand on the doorknob. Part of her got it, she did. This place was _his_ , but he hadn't been involved with it for decades, and he'd always been her equal before. Which made him trying to overcompensate so infuriating.

She took a deep breath and faced him.

"Dembe isn't a hired hand you can treat like that - he's your right-hand man and you trust one another implicitly. Read his file: you saved him when he was 8 years old, and you've taken care of him ever since. You're his _family._ You should have figured that out by now, at least from the files. _That's_ why I'm angry right now.

"And those dreams? That's all you, actually. Because this _'thing'_ ," she gestured between them both. "It goes both ways, and since I'm the one who is used to it, I know how to control my end of it. I've felt almost everything you've been feeling for months and it _sucks_. So you'll need to figure that one out.

"And do _not_ lecture me on appropriateness," she ground out, and felt her fingertips zing with a spark of electricity between her skin and the doorknob. "I had a relationship with you, even if you don't remember it. It was a relationship that we both tried to avoid at first, because we respected one another and boundaries, even if you were your typical weird self about it, but it was unavoidable and I will never apologize for it. Neither would you. You just come off like a hypocrite when you throw that in my face.

"I get it, this is new, this is frightening, but if there is anyone in this place that understands what you're feeling? It's me. Because I literally _feel_ what you're feeling. Trying to treat me like some underling with a crush is absolutely demeaning and I will call you out on that."

He said nothing, but the simmering discontent was there, under her skin. "It's been 26 years, Reddington. A lot has changed since you remember last. The world has changed. Technology has changed. The Morgue has changed...you started this place but it's grown, and it's _good_. Stop acting like you own the damn place and you might find people will be willing to help you get your bearings."

"I'm fi-I'll manage," he gritted out. "That doesn't necessarily require your assistance."

"It would be easier if you let me help you. Particularly with what we're trying to do."

He let out a dry bark of laughter at her words and sank back into the seat. Something about his gaze made her feel exposed, and her hackles raised. "I disagree."

Not a lie.

"I'm not him, Agent Keen," he shook his head again, repeating the words as if convincing them both. "I won't be. Stop getting your hopes up."

She swallowed, feeling her throat tighten and eyes sting. No, she wouldn't cry in front of him. She wouldn't let him see that.

"I know. I know you're not him," she assured him in a voice overly polite, the edges so crisp they could draw blood, "because you're _nothing_ like him."

She slammed the door behind her and clattered down the stairs and immediately took a sharp turn in the direction opposite of her office, feet carrying her towards the Room.

It was usually a quiet place; no one went there unless someone was placing an item in the space. Typically, she wouldn't make it all the way to the room, ending her walk in front of the framed photo of her father, Red, and Cooper.

And this time it was where she found that last man, contemplating that same photo with arms crossed and a serious expression. He looked up, surprised, and if it hadn't been that she'd been looking for it, she saw the look of disappointment flash in his eyes before being smothered behind false curiosity.

Was this what Reddington saw when she looked at him? The same hope shattered immediately by disappointment?

"How did it-"

"-You know how it went," she huffed, cutting off the pretense. In the months since Reddington had woken up, they had bonded over the strange situation. Right now she was incapable of that professional politeness, that emotional distance he was looking to keep.

Him and Reddington. Stupid. The whole situation was stupid. This wasn't normal, and pretending it was some typical workplace issue in a 9 to 5 setting did nothing to help.

Liz looked at the photo on the wall, at the man she knew and loved, at the light in his eyes, and realized that it was absent in the man she'd just left.

"It's like a part of him is _missing_ ," she said, trying to suppress some of the anguish she felt.

Beside her, Copper heaved a heavy sigh. "He recognizes me, but I don't fully see all of my friend in him. It's more like he's...a shell."

"A robot."

"Exactly."

They stood for a while in silent contemplation before Cooper made a declaration that took her by surprise.

"If there's anyone who is getting him back, it's going to be you." Liz turned to him before he continued with a reassuring smile. "You've done it before; I have faith you can do it again."

"Thank you," she told him sincerely, and she felt her eyes sting a little. It currently didn't feel like that faith was in the right place, but it meant a lot to her to have it.

"He's still stubborn as hell, so I don't quite know how you'll manage it."

Liz snorted, and rolled her eyes, immediately feeling the need to cry dissipate with his light tone and teasing. "Well thanks, _sir_."

"Just know whatever it takes, you have my support."

Warmth filled her chest at the kindness in his voice. Her eyes flitted back to the old photo on the wall and the men in it. She would get past this. They would get him back.

She would get to see him smile like that again, and so would Dembe, Copper, and Mr. Kaplan.


	17. Chapter 17

" **O** h no," Liz uttered loudly, pushing her seat back quickly as if the cardstock on the table was capable of sprouting legs to pursue her. "No. I have been extremely cooperative so far but this...no. We should focus on the Blacklist. I have no interest in this case."

Cooper sat at the other end of the table, hands folded and face completely calm. "We both know you're lying, Elizabeth."

She totally was, because she was already imagining Reddington in a tux and...damn it.

She sagged in her seat and glanced out the conference room window to the office space across the way. Reddington was talking with Ressler, hunkered in and reviewing something in a file, and Ressler kept looking at the other man like he was worried he was going to blow up, or sprout another head.

Hey, around the Morgue the chances of either happening were 50/50.

"Working as his assistant or backup on these cases has been one thing; we both can bullshit pretty well, and Dembe always has our back," she told her superior. "But _Raymond Reddington_ got invited to a black tie event, and you want us to go in there with little to no idea of what the event is going to be."

"We're currently standing by for a new member of the Task Force to join us who might be able to give us more insight into who sent the invite, and what this is," he replied, and pushed a slim folder across the table to her.

Liz flipped it open, and immediately felt relief.

"Samar is back?" She tried to keep the happiness in her voice at a professional level.

Her boss nodded. "We'll find out what we can. We can get Dembe in there with you both at least."

Reddington had completely adapted to having Dembe as his bodyguard when they were on cases, in fact, he insisted on his presence. He wasn't risking so much as a papercut now that he had a second chance at living. Liz knew it didn't sit well with Cooper either, and just continued to support their theory about part of him missing.

Finishing their briefing, Liz exited the office to get back to her work and follow up on a lead regarding the name used to book the event location on the invitation.

A tentative knock pulled her attention from her work a short while later.

"Can I come in?" Reddington was in the doorway, looking nervous.

Very different from their private talk just two weeks ago. Liz gestured to the empty seat by the door, the only empty space in the cramped office. He shut the door and turned the chair to face her.

Okay, this was going to be serious.

"I get the sense that the team, they don't like me."

Liz kept her face devoid of emotion.

"Harry told me I attacked him with office supplies when you were detained a short while back."

Liz couldn't help the smile she cracked. She knew for a fact that Cooper had held onto one of the post it notes; he had shown her it was hidden under his blotter.

She was aware there were others who didn't look as fondly on his antics, but she got the sense that she needed to reassure him about his previous self.

"Most people assumed you were a poltergeist until I let you loose...even after that, admittedly, you did enjoy being more than slightly antagonistic." Liz folded her hands on the desk and shrugged, trying to subtly lessen that news. "A lot of it was just part of this character you were playing, trying to cover that you were amassing intel. I think it made it easier for you if people didn't like you."

Reddington nodded, and looked around her office while his thumb beat out a rhythm on the armrest in the quiet that followed.

Liz bit her lip and waited for a good minute or two, but when he didn't say anything else, she had to prompt the conversation. She felt how comfortable it was, having him in her space. It had always felt comfortable. Maybe that was why he'd never really grown to know the team before; he was always with her when he was at the Morgue. Maybe they had been a little too wrapped up in one another.

No way in hell she'd offer that observation up voluntarily to the man sitting in her office, though.

"Is there anything else you wanted to talk about?"

The question seemed to surprise him, and she watched that professional space get put back between them. He sat up straight in the chair and the openness of his expression was wiped away.

"No, that was all, Agent Keen," he replied. "Thank you. Someone will call when it's time to go over the plan for this party."

She continued on with her work for another 30 minutes, blissfully undisturbed, before a text notification buzzed on her cell.

 _just arrived_ was the simple text from Samar, but she smiled and pushed back and out of her chair to head for the elevators.

Aram caught her just outside of her office door, looking urgently concerned about something.

"Hey, kind of a weird question, I know, but do you know why Mr. R is being nice to me?" Liz gave him a prompting look as he walked along with her. "I keep waiting to find my equipment in shambles or or…" The tech analyst paused, deep in thought, and then a look passed over his face like some grand epiphany. "Wait, he's _actually_ being nice to me."

Liz huffed a laugh. "Guess so. Even before, he was pretty capable of that. His bark was worse than his bite."

The man shook his head. "Eh, so-so with the comparison there. Ghosts don't have teeth," he corrected her. "Not like he could bite...you...oh God, you know what, I'm just going to shut up because what happened between you two was private and at any moment I'm going to get my mouth to stop moving I swe-"

She hadn't been looking at Aram when something cut him off, since the elevator doors had just opened and Samar had stepped out with a friendly smile on her face. When Liz turned to see what had distracted the task force agent beside her, she realized his eyes were on the newcomer.

And when she looked back at Samar, her own eyes widened. The Tracker was staring at the Tech Analyst with something like wonder.

Probably good if she made introductions, then, since neither one was saying anything. Of all the reactions, this scenario had never occurred to her. Amar crushing on her? Definitely, with time, but not anything like this.

"Samar? This is Agent Aram Mojtabai, our lead Tech Analyst. Aram, this is Samar Navabi; Samar is a Mossad agent who will be working with the Task Force."

The hairs on her arm arms stood up when they shook hands - she heard Aram take a deep sudden breath - and the pair seemed to be stuck staring at one another.

Someone behind them cleared their throat.

Samar smoothly collected herself and introduced herself to the newcomer. Aram jolted a bit but didn't move much.

"Meera Malik, CIA, force people to tell the truth by touch." She paused for a moment before continuing with a grin, "Love the boots."

Samar's gaze flickered over to Liz for reassurance this wasn't some kind of false kindness, and Liz gave her a discreet, affirmative look before answering. "Thanks."

Aram was still staring at Samar. Liz, taking pity on him, tapped his foot with her own and he sputtered out an apology and excuse before leaving back to his work space.

The Tracker headed off with a declaration that Cooper was looking for her to report in. Meera, amused, turned her attention on Liz. "You looked like you wanted to hurt someone earlier. Need a sparring session?"

Liz exhaled heavily and shook her head. "Need an evening dress for the assignment."

The shorter woman snorted. "Right. Should we steer clear of flammable fabrics or is the onus on Reddington?"

Liz laughed at that. "Sure you aren't able to read minds?"

"Would have loved to be able to hear what was going through their minds," she replied jerking her head in Aram and Samar's direction.

"In Aram's case, I'm sure it's in 1s and 0s," quipped Liz, earning a snort from her companion as they tried to brush off the bizarre interaction. "Want to head out early and help me with that extremely important work assignment?"

"My ex has the girls, so I'm free. Should we ask Navabi to join us?"

* * *

 **T** he three women enjoyed the shopping session, settling into an easy rapport that Liz hoped would continue in the workplace, and it helped keep Liz's mind off of the upcoming event until it was time to actually prep for the event and she shimmied into the conservative black and sequined short dress.

Stepping out of her office cum dressing room, she set her shoulders back and walked into the pen with a feigned degree of confidence. Dembe, dressed in a dark suit, gave her a friendly smile that triggered one of her own.

The room was buzzing with activity as a team in tactical gear, their secondary backup if needed, rolled out. Ressler, Meera, and Samar would be as close as they could be for less noticeable assistance. Samar was unable to get anything off of the invite since it had been printed by a third-party company. Walking in blind meant preparing for everything and Liz hated it.

"I'll be fine, Harry," came a raised voice from Cooper's office, and Liz and Dembe looked up to the space to see Reddington in the process of descending the staircase with a little more force on his heels than necessary as he went. Liz swallowed, feeling her stomach flip and her mouth suddenly dry at the sight of him.

She knew he'd look good in a tux.

He looked up from buttoning his jacket and gave both of them a once over. For a second, he held Liz's gaze, and swallowed, but tilted his head back and gave them a smile that attempted to be pleasant.

"Oh look," he quipped. "We match."

The drive to the location on the invite was mostly silent, with Dembe driving and Liz and Red in the backseat, the distance between them feeling like it went on for miles. Liz felt his nervousness humming just like her own and when it finally became too much, when her own attempt to assure him they'd be fine, silently, was too much, she had to say something.

"Can you please keep that to yourself?" she asked, still looking out the window and attempting to keep her voice even. "I can't slip and hurt someone."

"Then don't," was his quick and careless reply.

Liz turned and gave him a hard look. "You're broadcasting your anxiety a little too much," she told him. "And I am a human taser and ghost magnet whose abilities are triggered when I feel threatened."

She could feel his mental retreat and let out a breath she hadn't even realized she was holding.

The location was a private, expansive residence, gated and at the top of a hill. The trio entered the event after a rigorous scan and pat down. Inside was dimly lit by candles and warm wood seemed to glow because of it. Unintrusive piano music, wine and champagne, evening gowns and tuxedos. Perfectly put together individuals of the upper echelon and ghosts.

Both Liz and Red had to hide their surprise as a couple passed them, the older woman happily on the arm of a younger man in a suit that had been popular several decades ago, when he died.

"They're…" Liz kept herself from completing the sentence. _Like us._

"Soulmates," declared the woman who sidled over to them, she was older, with close cropped dark hair and she stood out in a crowd of black-clad people in wispy red. "Incredible, isn't it?" she asked before taking a sip of her champagne.

Liz could feel Reddington's eyes on her as she faltered. Of all the people to put a name to what it was she and Raymond were, it was…

"Floriano Campo," the woman introduced herself, offering her hand to Reddington, and then Liz. Of course she knew who she was. Liz had always greatly admired her work fighting human trafficking, perhaps drawn to the subject subconsciously because of her own past. She'd even written about her once during college. What she couldn't understand was why one of her idols was at this event.

"I am pleased you were able to attend. You will want to follow me, I think," Campo told Reddington, eyes flickering over to Liz. "Perhaps your guest would like a drink while I show you something."

The feeling of elation from meeting her idol went plummeting into her gut with confusion. Why would Campo have invited Raymond Reddington - the one on the FBI's list - to a private event?

"Leave her alone and she gets bored," drawled Reddington, with no hesitation. "My bodyguard does, too." He patted Liz's hand where it was curled around his arm before gesturing grandly. "Shall we?"

Campo was slightly taken aback, but smothered any displeasure with a gracious smile. "Of course."

Dembe, Reddington, and Liz followed Campo away from the din of the party to an elevator flanked by heavily armed guards. Campo entered a code on a keypad, pressed her thumb to a scanner and ushered them in.

"As you can see, I do not take our security lightly. The floor cannot be accessed by anyone but myself and the head of my security detail. I would not wish our clients to think we do not take appropriate precautions with the product," she explained while they descended rapidly.

Finally, the elevator doors opened and the group stepped out. There was a chill to the space, and it smelled like a hospital.

With all the beeping, it _sounded_ like a hospital.

Liz felt Reddington's rising sense of alarm a half second before his progress forward came to a sudden halt. Her own view was blocked by the top of Campo's head, but whatever it was seemed to surprise Dembe as well who inhaled sharply through his nose - as close to a gasp as she could imagine from him.

She finally was able to see what was beyond the glass wall when Campo turned to face them proudly and gestured to the room behind her.

Hooked up to heart monitors and IVs, dozens of people slept in hospital beds.


	18. Chapter 18

**L** iz found Dembe on the balcony, away from the noise and close quarters, and he gave a small tip of his head to point out Reddington's position a few steps away, half hidden in shadows beyond the spill of the party's dim light. Dembe looked extremely nervous about something, but didn't give any kind of hint about his concerns despite Liz's questioning glance on her way to Reddington's side.

She passed him a tumbler of ginger ale wordlessly; she had stolen a sip on her way to the balcony since his roiling stomach was making it hard for her to work the room and gain intel before she staggered over to the bar to alleviate the worst of the symptoms for both of them.

Earlier, Campo had continued giving them a tour of her facility and assurances that they were keeping the bodies healthy and safe. Reddington's lack of reaction, externally, was impressive.

When he had asked the woman, with an air of arrogant loftiness, what she thought he was doing at her event, she had seemed slightly taken aback.

"I...I imagined you were interested in investing in our business," she had replied.

Liz had felt his paralyzing revulsion in her own gut, and immediately tried to cover for him and give him a moment to recover.

"He's going to need to see financial reports, know who else is investing in your company, who he is getting in bed with," she declared in a rush and with an air of authority. Yesterday, this was one of her personal heroes, but today she was already picturing her being led away in handcuffs and eager for it. "You may have found a niche market with a high profit margin, but Mr. Reddington and his time, money, and energy are worth far more than you can imagine."

Their host had promised them what they were asking for after her presentation to the group upstairs.

Now, after some mingling, Liz needed Reddington ready to appear haughty and vaguely interested. If they could get out of here with that info, even if it wasn't complete, they could signal to their team to rush in and arrest Campo and bring this operation to a halt. She knew that there may have been value to continuing to allow them to operate, but she would rather have a little information to follow their financial paper trail and have them shut down immediately.

"They're just like I was, aren't they?" he asked quietly while staring out at the inky black sky and the town below them.

Liz took a deep breath and let it out. "Basically." Save for the fact that Campo was basically selling the comatose bodies instead of renting them out shortterm, like they had done with Reddington's body.

Beside her, the man stared at his glass and the reflection of the party's lighting on its curves.

"These people are all aware of what they're doing, they came to buy _bodies._ "

"I don't think they're fully aware."

"But they still know whatever this is, it's illegal." He paused, took a sip to bide his time before continuing, and Liz bit her lip and waited for whatever he actually wanted to say. "Would you…"

Liz made eye contact with him, holding him still and accountable for what he was trying to ask her.

"Would _we_ have done the same?" she finished for him, hearing her own voice somewhat flat. "I don't think so. Not...not like this."

 _"What if I told you we could be together?"_ he had asked that day in the elevator, and he'd been so _happy_. He couldn't have known this was what it meant, what that possibility would cost.

"I think you had set something up, right before...everything," she told him.

She watched his jaw work in high contrast in the dark of the patio for a moment or two before a feigned chuckle broke the silence. Reddington shook his head slowly. He didn't have to say anything, she felt the self-directed anger and disgust rolling off of him in waves.

"We were happy with what we had, but…" she shrugged and sighed, feeling tired, feeling the chasm in her chest that came from missing how things had been; she could hear his words, his _yearning_ , for more. "You wanted more."

Liz decided then and there to separate them in her mind, Reddington and Raymond were two completely different people, and if these conversations were going to continue, she needed to keep apart. Then and Now would only make for more regret.

"I can't imagine wanting something so badly I would do something like this."

"I don't think you were aware of all the details. You wouldn't have even considered it, knowing-"

"Are you certain of that?" he asked, cutting her off sharply, and a moment passed where he simply stared coldly at her.

He had no idea who Raymond was. None.

"Yes," she hissed back at him, baring teeth and pushing off the balcony, propelling herself back inside for the presentation and away from him.

"Liz," Dembe started to call after her, but she shook her head, needed the space. It could wait for later, whatever it was.

Campo had drawn the guests around herself as champagne flutes were doled out. A waiter glided over to the woman's side and handed her a flute.

Liz felt Reddington's presence behind her. He seemed to watch the waiter's retreating figure, back towards the bar set up by the entrance, for a brief second before he returned his attention to Campo.

The woman had no problems explaining in a sympathetic tone all of the barriers that couples like the ones gathered before her could experience, even those who were soulmates. Liz snagged a champagne glass of her own from a passing waiter and downed it, trying to counteract the burning feeling of guilt in her gut.

Even as wonderful as their relationship had been, there were limits to it. The meals in the back of fancy restaurants, hidden at chef's tables and away from the eyes of other patrons who would have only seen a woman talking to herself. The movie nights at home because Raymond's typical running commentary would have her laughing to the point of tears. Simple things, little things that other couples took for granted, like being able to be _recognized_ in public as a couple, growing old together, they were impossible. And as much as they both had focused on what they did have, and could have, there were things that were missing.

With enough time, they may have turned to someone like Campo.

The woman paused in speaking to take a sip of her own glass before continuing her pitch. Liz noticed within minutes that she was becoming short of breath. Then the trembling started, and the glass fell from her grasp. Campo grabbed at her throat and a member of her security team moved forward to try to assist her, lowering her towards the floor.

"She can't breathe!" yelled someone.

Liz remembered the emergency medical maneuver from a medical class at Quantico on basic first aid. "Give me your pen," Liz said, putting her hand out to Reddington. When he didn't budge, Liz twisted to look at him, only to find him leisurely watching the situation before him. She felt his satisfaction and mentally pushed away from him, closing off their connection with such a force that it took them both by surprise.

"Give me the pen and I won't stab it in your own damn neck."

He made no move to help her.

"I'll deal with you later," she ground out at the Concierge of Crime, giving Dembe a prompting look while jerking her head in the direction of the door. She and Reddington could handle whatever might happen in the next few minutes while Dembe got outside to signal the tactical team on standby to move in.

Liz grabbed the pen out of Reddington's inner lapel and moved forward to assist, since there were apparently no doctors present in the room, and the medical team was several floors below them. There was no way in hell that Liz was going to miss the opportunity to arrest the woman, and even as disgusting as her business was, she needed to be alive to be properly prosecuted.

A medic from the lower floors arrived, pushing their way through what remained of the crowd - some had started to try to leave, others were frozen in place and watching the spectacle - and Liz took the opportunity to grab Reddington's arm and exit the house. Dembe was waiting with the motor running, and they raced away from the house, swerving to avoid Ressler's SUV headed to the scene.

Another SUV in the group peeled off and 'tailed' them in what appeared to be a high speed chase all the way back to the closed grocery store parking lot and the van they were using as a base for the operation.

The moment the car came to a stop, Dembe was looking in the rear view mirror at Liz. "Elizabeth, forgive me for not telling you sooner."

"I brushed you off when you tried, Dembe, _I'm_ sorry," she replied sincerely. She put her hand on the car door to get out but swiveled to point at Reddington. "You, on the other hand...you could have blown our chance with this lead. What the hell were you thinking?"

"That if there was anyone else asking me the question, I could lie and explain it away saying it's important that Raymond Reddington continues to act in what appears to be his personal best interest, regardless of the cost." The answer came quickly, and was colored by resentment. "But since it's you, I'm forced to say that I was acting on emotion, that I wanted revenge for what was done to me, that I wanted to stop her from putting someone through what I went through. It doesn't matter how much those people think they're in love, morally...ethically, the entire situation is disgusting, and it needed to be stopped.

"So I used one of the contacts we've gotten from my files. I called a man who acts as a handler for assassinations. I set the entire thing up in under ten minutes while you were inside talking to one of those couples. It was convenient...efficient, really. One quick phone call and that woman was _stopped_.

"I hated her. You hated her. It was _easy_."

She couldn't say that Raymond wouldn't have done the same. He would have, but for different reasons, less selfish ones. But why did she factor into Reddington's choice? Did _her_ feelings tip the scale in this case?

"Alive, she may be able to help us find out more about who put you in that bed. Dead, we only have a 50% chance she'd even come back for us to ask for that intel," she reminded him quietly. "You built this program, don't ruin it."

She exited the car and left Reddington with that advice, climbing back into the van to fill Ressler in so he could command the teams sweeping the building.

* * *

 

 **B** y the time Liz was able to pack it in and get home, it was late, and after taking care of Hudson and changing into pajamas, she was setting up her coffee maker when she noticed that feeling, like some low-frequency hum in her gut, had grown in severity.

The knock at her door actually made her jump, and the coffee maker, her hand still on the buttons to program it, sparked.

Great.

Liz went to answer the door with gritted teeth, gun and an exorcism grenade and almost dropped the latter two when she saw who it was.

"What the hell-"

" _Soulmates?_ " It sounded accusatory, on his lips like that.

Reddington was bracing himself against her doorway with a hand on either side, and his tux was looking rather worse for wear. The top few buttons of his shirt were undone, and the bow tie was still dangling to the side. There was something very scared and naked in his eyes and it had Liz opening her door and pulling him into the safety of her apartment before anyone saw him like that.

She was really looking forward to that new nugget of information, and agonizing over it during the sleepless night ahead of her.

"Someone could have seen you," she chastised, walking past him into the kitchen. Tea. She could busy herself with making tea.

Hudson must have recognized him somehow, because behind her, she heard the jangle of his collar and the happy panting of her small dog. It stalled Reddington from immediately following her, and put distance between her and his anger.

"Does Cooper know you're he-"

"-I don't need to let Cooper know where I am every moment of every day. He's not my babysitter. What I need to know right now is if you were aware of this before."

"Aware of what?" she asked evasively, reaching up to get a mug out of her cabinet. The porcelain was yanked out of her hands by an unseen force and she whipped around to give the man a level stare.

And he returned it with one of his own, and she felt his anger, felt the confusion underneath, the _fear_.

It matched her own.

"Is this why the dreams won't stop?" he asked, suddenly in front of her, crowding her against the counter. "Is this why I know what you're thinking, _want_ to know what you're thinking, always?"

The tips of his shoes nudged hers and he put his hands on either side of the counter. "Is this why I feel the way I feel?"

His eyes darted down to her lips and she felt her stomach flip. That pull was there - weaker than it was with Raymond, but present and constant and always frustrating her. It would have been easy to give in to it, close the distance between them. Would probably feel like floating.

How different would it be, to kiss him like this?

Liz swallowed thickly, and her eyelids slid shut to momentarily escape the power of his eyes on her. He took it as an invitation to move closer, and a part of her waited, heady with anticipation, for the feel of his lips on hers, until the moment she felt his hot breath on her face, felt the _lack_ of him, what truly was fully him, and she twisted her head to the side quickly.

"Raymond," she said loudly, using the name like a wedge between them, and she heard him take in a harsh breath when he rocked back on his heels, but didn't remove his hands from the counter. "Raymond was...my soulmate. We never put a name to it, but he was my soulmate. You're not him."

"Yes, I am," he retorted, impatience obvious in his tone.

"No, you're not," she argued and pushed past him. She crossed her arms and turned back around, watching his bowed head and the rest of him, still in the spot she left him.

Vulnerable and lost right now, he looked younger, looked more like Raymond. It made her want to comfort him. It made her want to give in, allow herself the contact, fool herself into pretending he was back.

But he wasn't, and pretending he was didn't help. The man before her would always be a reminder of what she lost.

"You're...you're like his ghost," she laughed bitterly. "Half here, half gone...Still haunting me."

He turned then, battling with something he wanted to say in response, but she didn't try to find out what it was for herself. She couldn't. She couldn't invite his interest and she didn't want to be interested in him.

Beneath her shirt, she could feel the ring on its long chain, heavy on her chest, like their promises. She was doing this for Raymond. She couldn't lose sight of that.

She continued before he had a chance to say whatever it was. "I think," Liz said carefully, calmly as she could, placing each word down like some brick in a wall between them. "That we need some distance. We can keep it civil - we have to, for work but..we need space. In general."

He'd have Dembe for backup. She could partner with Ressler or Meera when they were doing investigative legwork. Less distraction that way. Less pain for her, maybe.

"I'll keep my thoughts and feelings to myself. You'll do the same. We can both work on...on ignoring this. On staying away."

Reddington considered her proposal in simmering silence, lips in a flat line of discontent.

"If that's what you want," he finally said, purposely.

Liz couldn't lie, but she could focus on other things that were true. "He would have wanted me to finish the work he left me."

Reddington watched her for a moment that drew out, long and painful. She could change her mind. She could walk the distance between them and kiss him, put her arms around him. She could take him to bed and close her eyes and pretend it was Raymond. She could ignore the fact that this was mostly curiosity on his part and not affection. She could back down.

But Liz chose to continue to hold his gaze, emotionless as possible, mind and emotions closed off to him.

Without another word, he passed by her, out of her kitchen, out to her living room, and out of the apartment. The apartment door closed, and after a moment, the locks were engaged even as he retreated down the hall to the elevator.

The sound of the door closing was deafening.


End file.
